


the baby in the room

by hopeboos



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Accidents, Childhood Friends, Domestic Fluff, Families of Choice, Family, Fluff, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Injury, Kid Fic, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Sharing a Bed, figuring out how to be the best dads ever overnight (its natural for them)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26497801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeboos/pseuds/hopeboos
Summary: “I have to go,” Hansol says, bending down to pick up his rucksack. “Don’t get into too much trouble while I’m gone, alright?”“Trouble?” he replies, smoothing out the creases in Hansol’s t-shirt, touching him until the last moment possible. “I’ve never heard of her.”orWhile Hansol is away on his trip, just about everything in Seungkwan's life changes, with Chan at the centre of it all.
Relationships: Boo Seungkwan/Chwe Hansol | Vernon, Boo Seungkwan/Chwe Hansol | Vernon/Lee Chan | Dino, Boo Seungkwan/Lee Chan | Dino, Chwe Hansol | Vernon/Lee Chan | Dino, side seokhan - Relationship
Comments: 62
Kudos: 260





	1. Seungkwan

**Author's Note:**

> hi! it's me, hobiyah. i decided not to change my username back in the end, because i realised i was really looking for a fresh change in this acct. if you're a familiar reader, i'm glad to see you made it here! if not, welcome, i love the maknaes and i'm so excited to finally be putting out a poly maknaes parent fic!!
> 
> slight trigger warning for some discussion of an unhappy family past
> 
> happy late birthday jeonghan and happy early birthday ner!!!!! svt and i love you and this is fate that we both got ready for your birthday like this, i hope u like it <3

“Did you pack all your medication? Your allergy tablets?”

“Yeah, they’re in the bag.”

“And the inhalers? Will they be enough?”

“I’ve got them. It’ll be fine, trust me,” Hansol says, his grin is undeniable. “I’m as prepared as I possibly can be. I’ll be okay on my own.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“Seriously, don’t worry. I’ll be okay. Look after yourself instead, alright?”

He huffs, swallowing down the lump in his throat. “I’m a big boy, you think I can’t handle myself for two months?”

“Ah, I knew you’d cry.”

Seungkwan rolls his eyes, delicately wiping at his eyeline with the length of his fingers. “I’m going to miss you, okay!” he says, crossing his arms. “I can’t believe you’re really going!”

“I’ll be back before you know it,” Hansol promises, pulling him in by the elbows and pressing a kiss to his mouth. “Take care, okay? Remember that I can always come back if you really need me to.”

“I’m not going to need you to come back. Your trip will be amazing. You’re going to do so great. I can’t wait to hear all about it.”

Hansol smiles, and they kiss again, slower. He’s warm and bright and ready to go, and Seungkwan doesn’t want to part as the last call for Hansol’s flight echoes through the airport.

“I have to go,” he says, bending down to pick up his rucksack. “Don’t get into too much trouble while I’m gone, alright?”

“Trouble?” Seungkwan says, smoothing out the creases in Hansol’s t-shirt, touching him until the last moment possible. “I’ve never heard of her.”

“Right,” Hansol says, taking his hand and squeezing it gently. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

Seungkwan smiles at him, eyes still a little watery. “Bye. I love you.”

“Love you too. See you.”

Hansol turns, heading further into the airport. When he reaches a corner, he looks back at Seungkwan, waving as he turns—Seungkwan waves back, then brings his arms in to hug himself when Hansol disappears completely.

He spends a few minutes standing there trying not to cry, because it’s not like Hansol is going to war or something. He’s just going abroad. For two months. With no contact.

An iced Americano from the tiny airport Starbucks cheers him up a little, which he sits and drinks in his car as he’s trying to decide where to go next. Depressingly, their lives have been building up to this for some time, packing and preparing for Hansol’s lengthy trip, making sure he was ready and that everything was in place. Now that it’s really here, he’s realising he never prepared much for himself. What the hell is he going to do on his own for two months?

There’s only one obvious answer. He’ll visit Chan. He always knows how to take his mind off things.

-

“Oh no,” Chan says, when he opens his door. “You’re already here. How long has he been gone?”

“I don’t want to hear it,” he says, brushing past Chan as he enters his apartment. “Can’t I visit my old friend without it being an inquisition?”

“No,” Chan says, swinging the door shut after him. “I was in the middle of something here.”

“I can see that,” he says, surveying the piles of half-full boxes around the room. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Packing.”

“Because…?”

Chan groans, stretching his arms up to the low ceiling and avoiding Seungkwan’s look. “Because I’m moving out.”

“Moving where?” he asks, sharp. “You didn’t tell me about this.”

“You guys have been busy. Always talking about the Himalayas. You’ve had a lot to think about, and there wasn’t a good time to bring it up.”

“When has interrupting ever stopped you from saying something? Here, I’ll show you what you could’ve said.” He pitches his voice up a bit, sitting down on Chan’s sofa as he speaks. “’Seungkwan! Shut up about Hansol’s trip to the Himalayas for a minute, because I need you to know that I’m moving out. Here’s my new address so that you can send me lots of gifts and come and annoy me any time.’”

Chan doesn’t rise to the bait by laughing at him or biting back, but drops down next to Seungkwan on the couch.

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Why?”

“I’m not moving to a new address. I’m moving back in with my parents.”

“What are you doing that for?”

“It’s not like I want to.” He bends over, digging out a pile of letters from the box at his feet and dumping them on Seungkwan’s lap. “It was that or take out a loan that would only put me in more debt.”

He flicks through them quickly. Overdue notices for electricity bills and water bills, dismal bank statements, several notices from his landlord. He’s being evicted.

“How long has this been going on?” he asks, looking up at Chan. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“The studio dropped a bunch of teachers last month. I was already being underpaid, because I was waiting for them to renew my contract.” He shrugs. “Which obviously didn’t happen. They went bust, and didn’t tell anyone until closing day.”

“Chan,” he starts, putting the letters down to look over at him. “We would’ve helped you.”

“I know. But you shouldn’t have to. It wasn’t your problem, and you had your own things on.”

“You’re so stupid,” Seungkwan tells him, pulling him into a hug, awkwardly angled from where they’re sat on the sofa. He knows full well that Chan would never have said anything if he could help it, so he lets the martyrdom slide this once. “And the studio is stupid for dropping you. The kids there love you.”

“I know, right?” he says, muffled into Seungkwan’s shoulder, voice wavering slightly. “Assholes. I bet everything on that job.”

“I know,” he says, rubbing his hand gently up Chan’s back. He thinks the last time he saw Chan cry was when they’d dared each other to do that stupid haunted house at the fall festival several years ago, and Moonbin had been a particularly convincing axeman.

“Sorry,” he says, leaning out of the hug, eyes red-rimmed. “I probably should’ve told you before Hansol left.”

“Yeah, you should’ve. I came here to cry about my husband being gone, and now you’re telling me you’re leaving too?”

Chan stands from the sofa, cracking a smile. “At least I’m not flying halfway around the world. My parents’ house isn’t that far.”

“Still,” he grumbles, getting up and stepping over boxes to make it to Chan’s fridge. “You wanna eat your cupboards clean together tonight and forget our sorrows?” He opens the fridge only to find an unopened bottle of Pepsi and a half-empty jar of mustard sauce, and nothing else. “Never mind. Want to order in?”

“Only if we can get Chinese. And ice cream. And if you’re paying.”

“If I’m paying, I’m picking.”

“Then pick Chinese,” Chan says, stepping over the mess to shove several books haphazardly into a box.

“Brat,” Seungkwan says, holding up the Thai menu where Chan can see it.

They get Chinese and finish packing Chan’s boxes, then watch _Haikyuu!!_ together until the early hours of the morning. When they’re full of food and tired of the screen and finally making movements towards bed, Seungkwan asks,

“Will you move in with me?”

Chan looks up from where he’s digging his spare blankets out of the bedsheets box. “What?”

“We both know you don’t want to go back and live with your parents. I’ve got an apartment to myself for the next two months. Seems perfect, doesn’t it?”

Chan scoffs, rubbing at his eyes. “Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m being deadly serious.”

“I can’t just move into your husband’s half of the bed.”

“Don’t do that. You know it’s not like that. I would’ve offered it whether Hansol was here or not.”

Chan looks at him for a few seconds. Then he brings the blankets over, dropping them onto Seungkwan’s lap. “I have nothing to pay you for it.”

“You don’t need to. You’re family.”

Chan shakes his head. “I can’t. Thanks, though.”

He turns to walk away, so Seungkwan calls after him. “This isn’t pity, Lee Chan! You’d be doing me a favour, you know. If I go insane on my own, it’ll be on your conscience!”

“Goodnight, Seungkwan,” Chan says, shutting the bedroom door behind him.

Seungkwan sighs, flopping back on the sofa in Chan’s borrowed pyjamas, the taste of cheap-branded toothpaste stuck to his teeth. He’ll try again tomorrow.

-

The first sign of a bad day comes when he wakes up and realises that they have nothing in for breakfast. He can’t even make himself a coffee, because everything is in boxes, and Chan has to be out by noon. He can’t shave, or use any of his creams, or even shower to wake himself up, and Chan is calling for him to get up and help, already.

The second sign comes when he walks out of Chan’s apartment with the first box in his arms, and presses the button to call for the elevator. Nothing happens.

“Has it stopped working again?” Chan says behind him.

“What do you mean, again?” Seungkwan says, hitting the button a few more times.

“We’re going to have to take the stairs,” Chan says, already setting off down the staircase. “It’s not going to budge again until they send someone out to look at it.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he says, peering over the railing to look down through the centre of the building. The sight gives him vertigo.

“I live on the second floor, you big baby,” Chan calls from below, long gone with his box.

Seungkwan grunts and takes his first steps down the staircase. “We don’t all dance for a living.”

“I’m not dancing for a living right now. No excuses,” Chan calls, before he hears him stepping off the bottom step into the lobby.

“No excuses,” he mutters. “I had no excuse not to snuff you out years ago, but you’re still living.”

And that should be it, really. His bad day should start and end with sweating himself to death on the stairs and taking a quiet drive back to Chan’s family home. Eomma would give him tea, and he would help Chan settle in, and then he’d go home and have a long, comfortable, lonely sleep.

But when he’s on his fourth box, tired from trying to keep up with Chan on the steps and grumpy from having missed his morning coffee, his foot goes slightly too far, misses his grip on the step. With no free hands to catch himself on the bannister, his foot slips with a thud, and the rest of his body goes tumbling after. Head hitting metal, the world spins around him.

He lands on his back at the bottom of the staircase, winded and dazed, head ringing something awful at the sound of Chan’s pots and pans scattering around him.

“Seungkwan?” Chan’s voice rises from somewhere overhead, followed by the rapid sound of footsteps descending the metal staircase.

He goes to say _I’m fine,_ but his breath catches in his throat, and he’s not really fine, his elbow is smarting and he can’t feel his leg and he can’t help but think _of course, of course this would happen today_. Like someone was just begging for his weekend to get any worse.

“You’re all right, just take deep breaths,” Chan says, suddenly kneeling at his side. “With me, okay? Breathe in, breathe out.

His head feels underwater, but he tries to breathe with Chan a few times, focusing on his face hovering above him. His hair is flopping down, eyes looking him over quickly.

“Fuck’s sake,” Seungkwan rasps out when he can talk over the sound of his heartbeat. “This is a cosmic joke.”

“Are you in pain anywhere?”

“Just about everywhere.” He slowly pushes himself up on his hands, gritting his teeth as a wave of pain carries through his leg and up his spine.

“Anything we should be worried about?”

Seungkwan frowns down at his leg, looking innocuous but feeling like fire. “Think I’ve fucked up my leg.”

“You want to try standing?”

“Not really.”

“You think you need an ambulance?”

“I—” he chokes on the words, tears suddenly catching up with him. “I don’t know. I don’t feel good.”

“Oh, Seungkwanie,” Chan says. “How do these things always happen to you, huh?”

“God hates me,” he says miserably, beckoning Chan closer to put an arm around his neck. “Let’s just drive to the emergency room.”

“Ready?” Chan says, bracing himself to pull Seungkwan’s weight off the floor with him. “Three, two, one…”

-

After three hours in the waiting room, the doctor confirms he has a broken leg. Chan goes to pack up the rest of his belongings as he’s having the X-Ray done, but returns in time to hold his hand as he’s having his cast fitted.

“You’re going to have to take it easy over the next few weeks, Mr. Boo. Can you work from home?”

“Yes, that should be fine.”

“Do you live with someone who can help you at home? We recommend you avoid putting any weight on your leg for the first week, if you can help it.”

He looks over at Chan, sitting by him in the doctor’s office, and raises an eyebrow at him. _Reconsider my offer?_

Chan shoots him a deadpan look. _You’ve got to be kidding me._

 _You heard the lady. I need help at home,_ he pouts.

Chan rolls his eyes to the heavens, but he’s fighting a smile at the corner of his mouth. “Yes,” he tells the doctor. “I’m going to be staying with him for a while. I can help out.”

“Wonderful,” she says, picking up a packet from the desk and scribbling on a piece of paper. “You should take these twice daily for as long as you’re experiencing pain in your leg. I’ll book you in for a follow up appointment in about ten days or so, to check on your progress and change the cast. Until then, remember to keep the leg elevated as much as possible, use your crutches whenever you need to walk anywhere, but keep walking to an absolute minimum, okay?”

“Yes ma’am,” he says, trying not to sound as defeated as he feels. They’d given him painkillers earlier to ease the pain, but now he’s just left with lingering annoyance and frustration at this new situation. “Do you know how long I’ll have to keep it on?”

“It’ll depend on your recovery,” she says. “Six weeks, minimum. Twelve if you don’t let it heal. Most people have it off in eight.”

“I’ll treat it well, then.”

She smiles at him. “You’re lucky to have such a good friend around to help you out with things.”

“Isn’t he just?” Chan says, and Seungkwan swats at him.

Chan picks up his medication as Seungkwan hobbles out of the room on his crutches. It takes them a while to get back to the car, and he’s sure he looks ridiculous, but Chan doesn’t laugh, doesn’t try to make fun of him as he sweats his way down the corridor and out of the building. He just stays at Seungkwan’s side, getting the doors for him and helping him check out at the reception.

“You know,” Chan says once they’re sat in his car, the backseat piled high with moving boxes. “I’d be half convinced that you’d planned this if you didn’t look so miserable right now.”

“Why the hell would I break my leg just to make a point? Do you think I’m that crazy?”

“Yep. You’d do anything to win. You broke your leg, and now I have to stay with you, just like you wanted.”

“I wouldn’t break a bone for that. I don’t like you that much.”

“That’s debatable.”

“It most definitely is not. These are going to be the worst eight weeks of my life. I already knew that when I was left crying on my own in the middle of the airport, but now I have to go and cry again because I won’t be able to get Ben and Jerry’s on my own for the next eight weeks. Urgh.”

“Hey! I’ll be there, won’t I? It’ll be like Camp America all over again!”

“Camp America was fucking awful.”

“Okay, it’ll be like the fun parts of Camp America, when we shared the bunk bed and secretly ate all the popcorn, or when we scared Jung Hoseok with ghost stories. It’ll be fun.”

“My God,” he says, resting his head back as Chan starts reversing the car. “I’m starting to regret inviting you to stay with me. At least you’ll finally have to cook me meals when I ask you to.”

“If you had seriously asked me before, I would’ve made you something without question.”

“I did ask you seriously! I always wanted to see you make food for us!”

“I just assume you rarely ever mean what you say when you speak to me.”

“Do you think so lowly of me?”

“Yes.”

“Now I’m really regretting inviting you.”

Chan grins. “Too bad. You’ve got me now.”

“Yeah,” he says, watching his sharp-eyed smile in the rear-view mirror. “I suppose I have.”

-

Thankfully, the elevator in his building is having no terrible, life-altering problems, so they get into Seungkwan’s apartment without issue. He shuffles his way inside and immediately drops himself onto the sofa, deciding he isn’t moving again until bedtime, because hobbling from the car was tiring enough on its own.

Chan doesn’t sit beside him, though. “I’m going to run my stuff over to my parents’ place. Do you need me to pick anything up on the way back? Food or anything?”

Seungkwan turns in his seat, reaching out for him. “Shouldn’t you bring some of your stuff in? You’re going to be here for a while.”

Chan stands there, fiddling with his car keys. “Eight weeks?”

“Or longer? You’re not just here for me, you know. You can stay here as long as you need.”

“You don’t have to harbour me.”

“Of course not. I want to. And I know you’d do the same for me.”

He looks away, glancing at the tidy Boo-Chwe kitchen. Looks back at the sofa without meeting Seungkwan’s eyes. “I don’t know how long it’ll take for me to get back on my feet again.”

“Yeah. But I know you. You won’t want to be here a second longer than you have to be. Don’t you trust me?”

Chan rolls his eyes. “Only with karaoke scores. And music knowledge.”

“Trust in me!” he sings, and Chan breaks into a smile as he turns away. “And you’ll see!”

He brings his essentials inside before driving the rest over to his family home, returning with a container full of kimchi and some herbal medicine for Seungkwan. They have the kimchi with rice for dinner, Seungkwan balancing his meal on his propped-up leg as they sit in front of the TV together.

“What a day,” Chan sighs. Ironically, _Healer_ is playing out on the screen.

“What a fucking day,” he agrees. “My boss said I can work from home for as long as I need, so at least the next week will be more boring.”

“Maybe for you. I’m not looking forward to job hunting. Dance is so competitive too, and things are hard for people right now... I might have to look into something else to cover costs for a while.”

“Don’t rush into anything just for the sake of it. I need you to be around to help me with my follow-up appointment, remember? Don’t take any shitty jobs yet.”

“Are you paying me for all of this, or am I just your slave for the foreseeable future?”

“I can pay you if you want—”

“No, no,” Chan waves him away. “I’m not serious.”

“So you’d rather be my slave?”

Chan raises an eyebrow at him. “You know, when I told my mom what happened, she said I should look after you well, because you’re the only friend I have that’ll beg me to crash in on their married life because they’re bored and clumsy.”

“That’s right,” he grins. “I am pretty great like that.”

“I shouldn’t have told you that. Your ego is big enough already.”

“Your mother is a smart woman! You should listen to her!”

“She doesn’t know shit about what you’re like behind the scenes. Why did I agree to this?”

“Because you love me,” he sing-songs, sliding down in his seat to rest his head on Chan’s thighs, kicking his cast up onto the sofa. “So you’ll look after me!”

“The minute Hansol gets here, I’m out.”

“Nah,” Seungkwan says, closing his eyes. The painkillers he’d taken earlier and the meal now settling in his stomach are making him feel drowsy and pliant. “You love him just as much as me.”

Chan doesn’t reply, but puts one hand to the crown of Seungkwan’s head, gently parting his hair with soft, even strokes. The two of them rest there for a while longer, letting the sound of the TV wash over them, Chan’s fingers soothing him halfway to sleep.

-

Seungcheol drops by towards the end of the week with bags of takeaway for them both.

“You’re a lifesaver, Hyung,” Seungkwan says, wheeling his chair over to take the tub of japchae.

His wheeled desk chair has turned out to be his best friend over the past few days—it’s a great way to push himself around with his good foot without having to stand or use the damned crutches. He’s near given Chan a heart attack a few times by bumping into various objects around the flat, or leaning too far out of the chair and landing on the floor. But he’s always landed ass first, leg safely in the air, so he can’t see what the problem is.

“Tell me about it,” Chan says, and Cheol laughs at him hugging a packet of hotteok to his chest. “He’s the worst patient ever, you know. He asks me to do things for him, but if I’m already in the middle of something, he’ll get impatient and do it himself anyway. On Tuesday I told him not to move as I went out to visit this studio for half an hour—thirty minutes, mind you!—and when I got back, he was trying to make ramen from his chair.”

“You’ve got to be more patient, Seungkwan!” Cheol scolds. “How are you going to get better if you’re trying to do all these things on your own?”

“Everyone is just too slow,” he groans, spinning on the chair. Chan stops him after one rotation, carefully propping his cast back up on the low table. “If Chan weren’t so unemployed, I’d be doing all this on my own anyway.”

“But you don’t have to, so you’re really just being a brat about it,” Chan tells him. Seungkwan sticks his tongue out in return.

“You’ve got to focus on getting better!” Cheol says. “We all miss you in the office, you know. Jihoon told us all today that we’re too boring, and that he misses having you around.”

“Oh,” he says clutching his heart. “That’s so sweet. He’d never say it to my face.”

“Never,” Chan agrees. “But he adores you.”

“What about Hansol?” Cheol asks. “Have you heard from him?”

“No,” Seungkwan sighs, despondent. “And I’m not going to. He’ll be staying in the mountains for a lot longer yet, and it’s a no-contact project. His team have a satellite phone with them for emergencies, but I’m only supposed to call it if he needs to come back for something urgent. Otherwise, it’s full immersion.”

“Wow,” Cheol says, mouth round as he listens. “It’s a proper expedition, then?”

“He’s thrilled about it,” Seungkwan sighs. “I’m happy for him, but it sucks that I don’t even get selfies or anything. It’s the longest we’ve gone with no contact for as long as I’ve known him.”

“Same for me,” Chan says through a mouthful of bibimbap. “It feels weird, doesn’t it?”

“Makes me feel like we’re teenagers again, when it was just the two of us being dumbasses.” Like when we went to Camp America, he doesn’t say, because he doesn’t want to give Chan the satisfaction of being right.

“He’ll be back before you know it,” Cheol says, patting his good leg. “At least you have your partner in crime to keep you company.”

“I’ll have you know we have never committed a crime together.”

“Have we committed crime apart?” Chan asks.

“That’s your own business,” he says, picking the hotteok out from under Chan’s arm.

Cheol leaves when it’s long since gone dark outside, and Seungkwan mournfully leaves behind his wonderful chair to hop his way to the bathroom. Chan stays close by his side to make sure he uses his crutches, because he hates the things, and has been known to make his way across the apartment by clutching at various furniture before.

He sits on the closed toilet to brush his teeth and wash his face, Chan passing him the products that sit on the high shelves as he brushes his own teeth. He makes it to his bed by supporting himself on Chan’s arm, complaining that the bathroom floor was too slippery to use crutches on.

“Anything else, princess?” Chan asks, shoving a pillow under Seungkwan’s leg.

“Won’t you come and join me?” he asks, stretching out on the bed. “I’m getting phantom backache just thinking about you sleeping on the sofa every night.”

“I’m alright,” Chan replies, like he does every time Seungkwan asks.

“I’m actually going to get up and wrestle you into this bed if you don’t come and sleep here,” he says, patting Hansol’s empty side of the bed.

“No, you won’t,” Chan says.

Seungkwan immediately sits up, swinging his legs out of bed.

“Alright, alright!” Chan says, putting up placating hands and shoving him back down. “I’m reconsidering whether this whole thing really is an elaborate ploy. Was that doctor really a doctor at all?”

“What, I broke my leg to get you into my bed?” Seungkwan laughs to himself as Chan leaves the room to grab his pyjamas. “That’s one hell of a story for Reddit.”

“You can tell Reddit it worked,” Chan calls from the main room. “It can’t be safe to go very far in bed with a broken leg, though.”

“I can embellish it a bit,” he muses, lying back and staring at the ceiling. “Blowjobs would probably be the safest bet.”

“As safe as life,” Chan agrees as he comes back into the room. “I’m not giving you one, if you’re asking.”

Seungkwan laughs again, the painkillers making him feel light. “You wish, Lee Chan.”

“Go to sleep,” Chan orders, pulling the sheets up at the other side of the bed and wriggling in beside him. “You’re talking nonsense again.”

He kind of wishes it were easier to move about in bed with the heavy cast, that his leg didn’t have to be propped up with pillows all the way to the ankle. He’d like to roll into Chan’s body heat, press his face into his shoulder. He’s missed having someone to share the bed with.

“Okay,” he says, smiling to himself. It’s enough that Chan is here—he thought it would take longer to convince him to join him. “Night.”

“Night, Hyung,” Chan murmurs. His breathing slows, after a while, into a steady presence at Seungkwan’s side.

-

The knock at the door comes one week and one day after he breaks his leg. They’ve got a bottle of wine open on the table—for Chan’s benefit, mostly, grieving over the lack of job vacancies he’s found over the past week—and _The Lady and the Tramp_ playing on the TV.

It’s a quick but firm knock, ringing through the apartment, and both of them turn to look at the door.

“Who the hell is knocking at 11pm?” He reaches for his crutches, but Chan is already ahead of him, crossing the room to open the door.

“Hello?” he hears him say, just as Seungkwan is pulling himself up to balance between the crutches.

“Good evening,” a voice at the door says, one that he doesn’t recognise. “We’re looking for Boo Seungkwan?”

“That’s me,” he says, and Chan pushes the door open further, stepping aside so Seungkwan can come around him. He’s surprised to find himself facing two police officers in his doorway, and a third man in casual clothing, stood further behind them.

“Is it alright if we come in?”

“Yes, of course.” Seungkwan backs up awkwardly, and the two men duck into his apartment, their solemn expressions betraying nothing. “Is there a problem, officers?”

As the policemen move out of the narrow corridor and into his apartment, he gets a better look at the tall man accompanying them. He’s holding a bundle of blankets to his chest, rocking it slightly—as he enters the apartment after them, Seungkwan can see the baby clutched to him. Tiny and swaddled, with thin hair pressed against a soft head, the baby stays sleeping soundly in his arms as they stand in Seungkwan’s foyer.

“I’ll get straight to it, Mr. Boo,” the first officer says, who must be the oldest of the three. “We made several arrests tonight to take in a gang that we’ve been tracking for a while. Among them was Boo Jiseong, who we understand to be your sister.”

His neck snaps up to look at the officer, tearing his eyes away from the baby. “Ji-Jiseong?”

Chan moves to his side, hand hovering at his back.

“Is she your sister, sir?” the second officer asks.

“Yes,” he says, though he sounds uncertain even to his own ears. “She’s my sister.”

“She’s had several charges, and is currently being held at Dongbu station for questioning.”

“W-what did she do?”

“It’s hard to distinguish how far she was involved in certain incidents at this time, but the group she was with have been charged with several accounts of breaking and entering, trespassing, assault, theft, fraud, arson…”

“Oh my God,” he whispers, leaning into Chan’s side.

“Hey, do you want to sit down?” Chan says, wrapping an arm around his waist.

He doesn’t budge. “And the baby…?”

“Her name is June. According to your sister, she’s about ten months old,” the third guy says, coming forward with the baby in his arms. “I was called to the scene to pick her up and deliver her to you.”

“That’s Jiseong’s baby?” he says.

“Yes,” the man says, eyes gentle. “You didn’t know?”

“I haven’t heard from her since I was thirteen,” he says, faint. That’s his niece, in his arms. Jiseong’s daughter.

“I understand that you’re the only living member of Jiseong’s family? If you don’t have the provisions here for a baby, we can take her into social services for the time being. She’ll be well looked after until Jiseong’s case is reviewed. We can figure out what to do from there.”

“No, no.” He may not have spoken to her in a long time, but he knows one thing for sure. Jiseong would not want her baby to be with social services.

“No?” the older officer speaks up again, looking around his apartment. His computer is still on, blinking in the dim room, papers spread out on the desk next to it. The wine is sat on the living room table, along with their half-full glasses. “Can you provide for a baby here?”

He flounders, blinking at the officer. He’s right. They don’t have anything here. But June is the first family member he’s seen in twelve years.

“Yes,” Chan says from beside him. “We can. Don’t worry, officers, I’ve been looking after baby cousins for as long as I can remember.”

“You two live together?” the second officer asks.

“Yes,” Chan says, assuredly. He moves towards the tall man. “We can take care of her, no problem.

The tall man stoops down to carefully hand the bundle of blankets over to Chan. “Then I’ll leave her with you. I’ll be back tomorrow to go over a few things with you.”

“You’re from social services?” Seungkwan asks, but his eyes are trained on June, her little face slack with sleep.

“Kim Mingyu,” the man says, holding a hand out. Seungkwan shakes it awkwardly through his crutch, sizing him up. He looks young. Kind.

“We’ll also be contacting you to talk about your sister over the next few days, Mr. Boo,” the older officer says. “If there’s anything you need to talk about regarding her case, don’t hesitate to get into contact with us first.”

“Thank you. I will,” he promises them, feeling a little off-balance on his crutches.

He’s glad when they make movements to let themselves out. The men wish them goodnight and leave again, Mingyu giving them a lingering look before he shuts the door behind him.

They stand there in silence, looking at the baby sleeping in Chan’s arms. The whole encounter had only lasted a few minutes, but the shift in atmosphere it leaves behind is dizzying.

“Come on, you really need to sit down,” Chan says in a low voice. He doesn’t have a spare hand to guide him with, but his look is enough to get Seungkwan to move back to his seat.

He sits back on the couch, and Chan leans over to hand June down to him. Seungkwan takes her like she’s made of glass, her body so tiny amongst the layers of blankets. “Oh,” he says, looking down at her, so very close now. “Wow.”

“I can’t believe that just happened,” Chan says. One of June’s hands pops out from under the blanket as she moves in her sleep, tiny fist curled against her chest. “Are you okay?”

He feels kind of numb—like when he’d broken his leg, and the initial confusion and dull pain of the fall had winded him. His vision is blurred as he looks up at Chan, who’s crouching in front of him, attentive. “I didn’t even know if she was alive. All this time, I didn’t know if she was still in the country, or if she was married, or…” He looks down at June. “Or if she had children. And now she’s going to prison. And we have—June is my family, Chan—”

“I know,” Chan says, reaching up to stroke his cheek. Wiping away a tear, he realises, shifting June closer and blinking his vision clear. “So you’re going to look after her, right? No matter what.”

“Oh my God,” Seungkwan says, shifting June further up in his arms as the tears come faster. “Of course. She’s—she hasn’t got anyone else.”

“Hey, it’s okay, try not to freak out,” Chan says, patting his good knee carefully. “She’s got us. I know this is a lot, but you can do it. I’m going to help you, alright?”

“I can’t—I don’t even have diapers, Chan, or a crib, or baby food—”

“Mingyu left a bag,” he says, standing to go to the door. “We must have something.”

He looks down as Chan moves away. June has opened her eyes, looking up at him curiously, squinting from her sleep. He breathes in deep, holding the breath in his lungs, trying to stem his crying and smile for her.

“Hi,” he says, gentle, exhaling slowly.

June stares, waving her little hand around until it grasps at the collar of his shirt. She pulls at it, looking straight up at him with her mouth open, wondering.

“I know,” he says. “I’m not your mama. Don’t I look a bit like her, at least?”

June tugs at his collar, and her grip is surprisingly strong. “I’m sorry, you can’t have that. It’s attached to my shirt.”

“We have some diapers in here, some toys and clothes. A few jars of food, a pacifier…” Chan rounds Seungkwan, and June’s attention shifts to him, moving her head slightly to watch him stand in front of them.

“That’s your uncle Channie,” Seungkwan says, voice soft in the quiet room. “He’s going to be helping us a lot. He’s not too scary, is he?”

June watches him raptly, letting go of Seungkwan’s collar to bring both hands in front of her.

“Hi, June,” Chan says, sitting beside Seungkwan and offering a hand to her. Jun takes one of his fingers in her tiny fist, clinging tight, and Chan gently tugs, playing with her.

She gurgles something unintelligible, but the noise is enough to surprise them both into a smile as she pulls on Chan’s finger again.

“That’s right, I thought so too,” Seungkwan says, tears stopped, impending breakdown halted for now. He’s so full of something else—something just as overwhelming, but it isn’t panic. He knows with a sudden certainty that he will protect this baby, no matter what.

“I’m going to drive over to Jeonghan and Seokmin’s place,” Chan says in a quiet voice. “See if they’ve got anything left over from when Wonwoo was this young.”

“You’re a genius,” Seungkwan tells him, sincerely. “Did you say there was food in there? Shall I just try and feed her if she starts crying?”

“Yes, but there’s no baby formula. Do they still have milk at this age?”

They look at each other.

“I’ll ask Jeonghan when I get there,” Chan says, standing up and going for his keys. “I’ll buy some on the way back if we need it.”

“Don’t take too long,” he says. June is starting to peer around at her surroundings, coming back to Seungkwan’s face every so often, restless in his arms. “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“You’ll be fine,” Chan says, pulling on his jacket. “She’s your baby.”

“She’s barely my baby. She was put in my arms five minutes ago!”

“But she’s still yours,” Chan says, with unnerving certainty. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He shuts the door behind him, and June whines, reaching up to put a hand on his chin.

“It’s you and me, baby,” he says, and she pats his face with her hand. “What the hell do I do now?”

June makes another indistinct baby noise, waving her hand around.

“Do you want something? I’m sorry, I really don’t know how to do this. Food? How about that? Don’t you need to be sat up for that, though? I don’t have a highchair or anything… I don’t think I even have a spoon small enough for your little mouth.”

June sighs, groaning slightly.

“I know, right,” he says, rocking her slightly, hoping to placate her. “It’s not ideal. But I’m going to do my best. I’ll do right by you. Even though I only just found out you exist. Your mommy really could’ve called ahead, you know. Is she doing okay? Treat you well?”

It’s hard to reconcile this baby with the Jiseong he used to know. Eighteen years old and angry at the world, she’d wanted nothing more than to get away from her attachments, her commitments, their life in the care home. But June looks healthy and well, responding to him like a baby that knows attention and love.

He supposes it’s been a long time. Half his lifetime. A lot can happen in that time—she’d joined a gang, committed a few crimes, popped out a baby. In the same time, he’d graduated school, become a graphic designer, and married Hansol. A lot could’ve changed about his sister since he’d last seen her. Did Jiseong find love? Or was June a happy accident?

June whines louder. “I know, I know. Did you want to try and eat? The delicious—” he roots around in the bag, trying to keep June as upright as he can, “—carrot and coriander baby food? Hmm.” He frowns at the jar, trying to figure out if this is Jiseong’s choice, or perhaps Mingyu’s. “Interesting.”

She’s quietened down at the sight of the jar, though, so he sets it on the table, and places June on the floor beside the sofa. Loosens her blankets, moves the wine bottle clear out of her grasp, and grabs his crutches to search for a spoon. He eventually digs out a tiny plastic one he’d kept from a takeaway tub of ice cream, that had for some reason had never left his cutlery drawer. Hobbles back over to where June has rolled over onto her stomach, testing the carpet with her hands.

“Hey, look at this,” he says, dropping down onto the sofa again and setting his crutches aside. From there, he lowers himself carefully to the floor, sitting in front of June triumphantly, spoon in hand. “Let’s not go crawling away now, I won’t be able to keep up with you. You want some of this?” He unscrews the cap, and June stays facing away from him, moving her little feet like she’s about to take off. She’s wearing a cute little yellow one-piece, and when he carefully picks her up to sit her in front of him, he notices it’s already stained from an earlier feed, the same colour as the mush in the jar he’s holding. “I hope it’s your favourite.”

He spoons some of the food out, trying to guide it to her mouth, but she looks away disapprovingly.

“Come on. Isn’t this what you wanted?” he guides it to her mouth again, to which she gurgles unhappily and spits it out, all down her yellow one-piece. He grabs the tissues from the table and dabs at her with it, trying to wipe it up before he tucks the whole tissue under her chin.

“No? Not even a bit?” He scoops out another spoon and holds it out for her, but she turns her face away from him, expression crumpling up before she lets out a wail. “Oh, no, come on, no, it’s okay—”

He puts the food to the side and gathers her up in his arms. His leg with the cast on is starting to ache from his angle on the floor, but he pats her back carefully and starts rocking her where he sits. “It’s okay. What’s up? Are you smelly?” He sniffs her diaper—seems okay, but how is he supposed to know for sure? “Are you tired? It is pretty late. Way past your bedtime, right?”

He puts her to his shoulder, trying to rock her gently as she wails and cries into his ear. He isn’t fazed by the volume. Seokmin was his roommate in university. “I know, I know. Come on now. You can sleep here if you like.”

He sits there for a while, wishing he was back up on the sofa, but he doesn’t want to try and work his way back up there with one leg and an arm full of baby. He’ll wait down here for Chan, he thinks, as June starts to settle down, wearing herself out against him. She’s probably just sleepy.

When they’ve been sat there for a while, Seungkwan steadily rocking June close to his chest, his phone lights up over on the table. Keeping June carefully gripped close in one arm, he goes to answer it with his free hand.

“Hi,” he says quietly into the phone.

“Seungkwan,” Jeonghan says, sounding highly amused. “You should’ve told me you were expecting!”

“It would’ve been nice if someone could’ve warned me, too,” he exhales. “Is Chan there?”

“Seokmin is loading up his car now. It’s a good thing we’re a pair of hoarders, you know. We’ve got you covered with everything, so don’t worry too much.”

“Hyung, I have no idea what I’m doing,” he whispers down the phone. “I don’t know anything about babies. I don’t know what she wants, or when she eats, or when she sleeps—”

“It’s easy. I’m sending Chan over with some books, and some notes. You’re a natural with kids, Seungkwan, let’s not pretend otherwise. You’ve always been good with Wonwoo. It just feels scary because she’s your baby, right?”

“She’s—” he finds himself breathless for a moment. “She’s not mine, she’s my sister’s.”

“I didn’t even know you had a sister,” Jeonghan says softly. “I thought it was just you and Hansol and Chan.”

“Chan’s not family either. It’s been just me for a long time.”

“Chan is your family,” Jeonghan says, sure. “And so is this baby. I know it’s scary, because she needs you, but you need her too. I know you’re capable of this. You’ll settle into a routine in a few days, I bet, and then it’ll be like you always had her.”

“Maybe,” he says, feeling June’s soft head resting against his cheek. “I hope you’re right.”

“I’m always right,” Jeonghan says, a smile in his voice. “Chan is about to set off, but he’s going to get you guys some baby formula on the way back. He won’t be long.”

“Tell him to hurry up,” he says. He’s starting to get tired, sitting on the floor with a dozing baby and an aching leg. “I’m not raising this child on my own.”

“Got it,” Jeonghan says. “When is Hansol back?”

“Seven weeks,” he sighs. Oh, God. What is he going to do about Hansol?

“So it’s you and Chan with a ten-month old?” Jeonghan blows a breath out. “Good luck to her.”

“Hey! You just said we’d be fine!”

“Oh, you will be. I just wonder how the baby is going to put up with you guys.”

He scoffs down the phone. “If you’re done being helpful, I’m going to hang up.”

There’s a short hum from Jeonghan’s end, mulling over his words. When he speaks again, it’s with more gravity in his voice.

“Just try not to worry, okay? It sounds like you’re in a stressful situation, but I mean it when I say you’re a natural. She’s going to be okay with you.”

“Thank you. Really.”

“If you need anything, you can call us. You’ve got Chan, too. Your family is right here, around you.”

“I know,” he murmurs. “I love you guys.”

“And we love you too. Good luck, Seungkwan. You’ve got this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i kind of had a quarter life crisis over the summer after leaving uni, and writing slowed right down for me. i have like, three and a half chapters of this written currently, and tbh i've been feeling all over the place about this fic so far. so i'm doing something new for me and posting before the work is finished, to help motivate myself. i'm aiming to get the next four parts out over the next four saturdays in october, hopefully!! so i'd love to hear any thoughts you have so far <3


	2. Seungkwan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i got a new job this week!! and writing has gone well, the story is nearly done, so hopefully the rest of it should come out without issue as long as the rest of october passes well :)
> 
> big thank u to ren for answering my baby questions when i was starting out writing this, i did my research too so i hope you approve of baby june!!
> 
> again, a trigger warning for seungkwan's unhappy family history in this chapter
> 
> without further ado, pls enjoy <3

He’s roused from sleep by the low chattering and whining noises coming from the other side of the bedroom. It’s early, some inhumane hour of the morning judging by the pale light ebbing in between blinds, and the noise is coming from June, who is standing up and gripping the bars of Wonwoo’s old crib. Chan is already awake, couching down at the end of the bed to talk to her.

“Did you sleep well?” he’s saying, and she watches him with big eyes. She gurgles in response, unsure, looking over at Seungkwan when he sits up.

“Oh my God,” he says, voice hoarse. “We still have a baby.”

June makes an impatient noise, looking over her shoulder at the bedroom door.

“I’m sorry, she’s not here,” Chan says, tickling her knees through the bars to get her attention again. “But we bought some baby formula especially for you, if you want some.”

June looks down at her knees, then up at his face, and starts to bounce in place, still gripping the bars.

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” Chan says, standing up to lean into the crib and hoist her out. She whines unhappily, wriggling in his arms. “You can sleep some more if you want, Kwan.”

“It’s okay, I’ll come,” he says, but when Chan leaves the room with a grumbling June, Seungkwan just stares at his crutches, propped up against the wall. “As soon as I get the energy,” he tacks on, half-heartedly.

As he sits there, he can hear Chan speaking gently to June from the main room, asking her what kind of milk she’s used to having, pointing out the colourful label on the packet. June seems unsure about the ordeal at first, making a few noises of distress, but Chan keeps up the chatter. “It looks good, right? Tasty?”

Chan is a year younger than he and Hansol are, and even the two of them have only ever talked about children in passing. It’s hard to adopt, here, and with them both being focused on their careers right now—with the marriage and the apartment still fresh in their lives—children weren’t even on the table for them. Not yet.

And now here he is, taking care of Jiseong’s baby for God knows how long. Hansol is—in an act of divine intervention, it feels—unreachable, on the other side of the world, having his own life-changing adventure. And Chan is here, feeding baby June at 7:03 in the morning. Chan, who has always lent him a hand whenever Seungkwan needed it. Chan, who’s friendship is the longest running relationship Seungkwan has ever had.

He reaches over to grab his crutches and pull himself up, wobbling into the living room to see Chan sitting on the sofa, June laid against his arm. She’s patiently sucking on a bottle, and Chan looks up to smile at Seungkwan, proud and sleepy.

“Where did you learn to do that?” he demands.

“I couldn’t sleep. Spent the night watching baby care videos on YouTube.”

“Of course you did.” He sits down next to him, putting the crutches aside. “Why did you tell me to get some extra sleep, then?”

“It was a weird night for you.”

“True. It still doesn’t feel real, and I’m looking right at her.”

They sit there quietly for a few minutes, watching June feed.

“Are you going to call Hansol?” Chan asks, eventually.

Seungkwan watches June fidget until she’s done with the bottle, pushing it away in favour of looking around the room again.

“No.” He holds his arms out for her, and Chan passes her over without question.

“Doesn’t this count as an emergency?” he says lightly, standing up and making his way over to the sink, bottle in hand.

“Nah. Not his sister, is it? Not quite his baby. We can handle it for now, and he can catch up when he’s back.”

“You know he’d want to know.”

“I don’t want to distract him,” he says, propping June up on his lap and smiling at her. “He’s been excited for this trip for so long. It’s better for him to finish it well and deal with all this later.”

“Okay. If you think so.”

“I do think so. Hey, could you make me a coffee?”

“Sure. I’ll get started on breakfast for us all.”

“That would be amazing. Did Jeonghan say anything to you about her diet?”

“No, but I found a great article on it. At June’s age, babies should move onto soft foods, fruits and potatoes and the like. I’m thinking I might make us all some rice porridge for breakfast.”

“Hey,” he says. “If Hansol slips and dies in the Himalayas, I’m marrying you instead.”

“Don’t say things like that!” Chan laughs, searching through Seungkwan’s cupboards. “I can make you porridge without being married to you.”

“I’m being serious! You’re way too good at this. I’m tempted.” June starts trying to climb out of his lap to tug at the blanket thrown over the back of the sofa, and he brackets her before she can fall. “Did you say Jeonghan sent over some toys?”

“Yeah, hang on.” Chan already has a pan going over low heat, and he puts down the milk to jog across the room. “He sent over a cupboard’s worth of stuff. I hope Wonwoo won’t miss any of it.”

They lay out the toys and play together for a short while, before Seungkwan feeds June her porridge and Chan sets about babyproofing the flat. She’s still wary of the two of them, looking around for the face she’s used to, earning them a few cries of distress when she gets particularly upset about it. She’s easily distracted, though, especially when the living room table is pushed aside so that she has space to use her new plastic building blocks. Seungkwan makes a phone call to file for emergency time off work, and then he watches her play for a while, admiring the way she resolutely builds the same blocks into small towers. She can only get to four before it inevitably topples, failed by her ad-hoc stacking, but she’s never deterred by the failure.

He’s exhausted by 10am, which, thankfully, is when June is put down for a nap in the bedroom. That’s how Mingyu finds them—sitting on the sofa in comfortable silence, Jeonghan’s old baby monitor quiet between them.

Chan shows him into the room, and Seungkwan waves from the sofa, beckoning him in. “Sorry—we’re kind of a in mess here.”

“That’s alright. I’ve got a little one of my own at home,” he says, removing a child’s tambourine from the armchair before sitting down across from Seungkwan. “You’re not going to have a clean house for the foreseeable future, I’m afraid.”

“I suppose that depends,” he says. Chan sits down next to him, the two of them facing Mingyu. “Do you think we’re going to have care of her for the foreseeable future?”

“Well, Boo Jiseong has officially had several charges brought against her, and is being transferred to await trial in Sasanggu Jail. In cases like this, the child goes to the next of kin—usually a mother, or a sister. Aunts, too, perhaps.”

“Not had to deliver to many brothers?”

“Not often,” Mingyu admits. “Not ones without families of their own, at least.”

“Isn’t there a legal process to go through for that?” Chan asks.

“At this point, while she waits for trial, I just need you to sign a few documents to declare you have temporary care of her. I’ll be visiting a few times to check up on you guys, but nothing more needs to be done until the trial. You’re family, and it’s natural for family to take in their nieces or nephews during hard times. If Jiseong is convicted and given a sentence, our next actions will depend on the sort of sentence she has, what she wants for June, and what social services think would be best in this situation.”

“What do you think will happen? In your experience?”

Mingyu clasps his hands in front of him, fingers pressed together neatly. “The charges against your sister are fairly clear cut. The police have been building a case against her gang for a while, it seems. She’s likely to get at least a few years in prison, and those few years are crucial for June’s development. We’d want them to be as stable as possible. If Jiseong is happy with it, and if your home is found appropriate, you could file for permanent adoption. Or you could foster for a few years and reconsider the situation when Jiseong completes her sentence. It depends on what you want, too, of course.”

“But social services could still decide to take her?”

“Yes. But we do prefer that children stay with family members, if they can—”

“Even family like me? A younger brother, a child of the system, no parents, no wife. I’m not an ideal candidate.”

“Admittedly, the court favours women in adoption cases,” Mingyu says, shifting in his seat. “But you’re lucky we’re in Korea. The value of family is high, here. I think you stand a good chance of keeping hold of June, if that’s what you want.”

“Perhaps,” he muses, looking Mingyu over. “I’d have to adopt her as a single parent, right? I’m married, but the marriage doesn’t hold up in this country.”

Mingyu’s eyes flick between him and Chan, and something in his expression shifts. “Ah,” he says, wiping his palms on his slacks. “Yes, I expect you would. You’d probably want to talk to a lawyer about that, though.”

“I understand,” he says, smiling wryly as he glances at Chan. “Thank you, Mingyu, you’ve been very helpful. Where are those documents you were talking about?”

Mingyu produces the documents, and June wakes up to say hello before he leaves, looking Mingyu up and down with the same uncertainty she seems to have for all of them. When she bursts into tears after craning up to look at him, he leaves in an apologetic hurry. It takes her nearly half an hour to settle down enough to feed again, lying in Seungkwan’s arms this time.

“I’m going to be here as long as you need me, you know,” Chan says, as they sit together and watch her drink another bottle of formula.

He doesn’t take his eyes from June, but his attention shifts. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You said I would be gone as soon as possible, but…”

“I really need you now,” Seungkwan finishes with a half-laugh.

“Right. What would you do without me?” Chan smiles. “We can take the next steps when Hansol comes back, but as long as you want me around, I’ll be here.”

“Thank you,” he says, sincerely, because as much as Chan is one of the kindest people he’s ever met, he also knows how much he values his independence. “I really would be lost without you, you know.”

“I know. I am pretty great.”

“Shut up,” he scoffs, and June spits out the bottle to burp at him. Chan laughs, and stands to get her teething ring, and the moment passes.

-

Seungkwan has his new cast fitted on the same day the police come to question him about Jiseong. He goes to the appointment alone, in the end, to avoid the fuss of ferrying June around a hospital when she’s only just settled into the apartment. Chan’s warning text is the only preparation he has for the two officers waiting in his living room, bright new cast on his aching leg.

“Look, it’s Appa,” Chan says, sat on the floor with June. Seungkwan rolls his eyes at him, because they’ve talked about the Appa thing, but he’s endeared all the same.

“It’s me! I’m back!” he says, manoeuvring himself onto the sofa so that he can safely wave at her.

“Hi there, Mr. Boo,” the closer officer says, reaching over the table to shake his hand. “I’m Officer Hong, this is Officer Xu. We’re here to ask you a few questions about your sister, if that’s alright.”

“You can ask me anything you like,” he says, propping his leg up on the table with both hands. “Though I don’t have much useful information to give you.”

“I did warn them,” Chan says from where he’s lying on the floor. June is shuffling about on the floor next to him, attempting to arrange a collection of plushies into the crook of his arm.

“It’s okay. I’m happy to talk.”

“As we understand it, you and Jiseong were in a foster home together for many years. Is that correct?”

Seungkwan doesn’t look at Officer Hong straight away, but nods. “We were taken into care when I was young, and I spent most of my childhood in Jongdeok Foster Care Home. Jiseong would’ve been nine or ten when we were taken in.”

“Were you two on good terms back then?”

“Good terms?” Seungkwan purses his mouth in thought. “I’d say so. We loved each other, but we fought like cat and dog. Jiseong always had a hard time dealing with the care home, and we have a five-year age gap, so we struggled because of that, I think. Jiseong could always remember Mom and Dad and living at home in a way I never could. We grew apart when she was a teenager, because I didn’t like that she was changing, and she couldn’t handle me being a child. Left the home at eighteen, and I never saw her again. But I always loved her.”

“Did you have any contact with her after she left the home?”

“None. I didn’t have a phone. She never sent a letter. Not even a birthday card.” He smiles, but there’s no humour in it. “She just dropped out of my life.”

“Did she tell you where she was going?”

“Nope.”

“Did you ever have any idea where she might be, through all these years?”

“None.”

“Did you know she had a child?”

“Not until your guys walked in with one a few days ago.”

“Have you had contact with any other relatives since you were taken into care?”

“Nope. Mom’s dead, Dad’s in prison, and I’ve never had anyone else reach out to me.”

“You’ve been on your own for a long time, then?”

Seungkwan isn’t smiling anymore. “I don’t know how many times I need to say it for you to believe that I haven’t seen her since I was thirteen.”

Officer Hong sits back, somewhat chastised. Officer Xu sits forwards to replace him. “Do you have any idea why she joined the gang? Did she show interest in that sort of lifestyle when she was young?”

It’s been a long time since he’s had a conversation with Jiseong, but he can remember what she was like in their last few months together. “Yes. She hated the home, she hated our dad, she hated the whole world for how it had treated her. She had trauma from our childhood that she never got real help for. Told me once that she wanted to live away from the adults who wanted to control her, to live off the grid, to find a place for herself far away from Busan. I didn’t really take her seriously, back then.”

Officer Xu nods, sympathetic. “I’m sorry the system failed her.”

“Me too.”

Officer Hong produces a stack of thin files from a bag, handing them over to Seungkwan. “Could you have a look through these and tell us if you recognise anyone?”

Seungkwan flicks through the folder as June starts making baby chatter, bored with her plushie games.

“You want something new?” Chan says, rolling over to pick out a new toy, and June pauses to watch him. Seungkwan flicks through the folders, containing names and mugshots. There are a lot of women Jiseong’s age and younger, a lot of men who are a little older. He pauses upon seeing Jiseong herself in the last folder, hair very long and all twelve years showing on her face.

“Buh,” June demands, pulling the toy phone out of Chan’s grasp and proceeding to hit it against the floor.

“Come on, let’s not do that,” Chan says, attempting to swap it out for another plushie instead.

Seungkwan passes the folders back to the officers. “I don’t recognise anyone other than Jiseong.”

“Alright,” Officer Hong says gently. “Thank you for your time.”

The two officers glance at Seungkwan’s leg and the way June is trying her hardest to sit on top of Chan’s torso, and gracefully show themselves out of the apartment. The face Chan pulls as they shut the door behind them prompts a half-smile from Seungkwan.

“How pointless,” he remarks, catching one of June’s hands in front of his face.

“At least they didn’t take too long. Was everything okay here?”

“We’ve been fine. She had a bit of a meltdown when I tried to put her in the bouncer earlier, so we’ve decided to stick to floor games, haven’t we?” He picks her up from his chest and places her in front of a shaped-blocks game, placing the yellow circle in her hand.

“Sounds smart,” Seungkwan says. June eyes the block in her hand suspiciously, then raises it to the square hole on the board in front of her, clumsily trying to force it through.

“I think I’ll make us some lunch if you want to come and sit with her for a bit,” Chan replies, gently guiding her hand to the circle hole on the left. The block pops through, and June stares at it, amazed. “I could do with getting off this floor.”

“Sure.” He lowers himself to the floor beside June, who gives his chunky cast an accusing look. “I know, right? Annoying, isn’t it? Maybe you could draw on it, or something. I don’t know if I dare give you paints, though. This apartment is brand new.”

June looks up at him, gurgling. Then she goes to pick up the triangle block by her legs, and surveys the remaining shaped holes on the board.

Chan stands, stretching up to the ceiling and groaning as he does. A sliver of tanned stomach appears above his waistband. “What do you want? Maybe June wants to try some banana today?”

“Sounds messy. Let’s do it.”

“I think we could do with some fruit ourselves. What else will heal your leg if not the power of vitamin C?”

“My great love and care,” Seungkwan says. “The doctor gave me exercises to do to help my leg get used to my weight again. How is that supposed to work with the cast still on?”

“I’m pretty sure your doctor knows what she’s doing, you know. If you be patient and do your exercises right, you’ll be back in action before you know it.”

“I hope so,” he pouts. “I can tell June likes Channie Appa more than me, because I can’t carry her around.”

“So I can be Channie Appa, but you can’t be Kwannie Appa?”

He rolls his eyes, lying down next to June and propping himself up on one elbow. “No! It’s weird! She’s my sister’s kid, how confusing is that for her if I start being Appa?”

“It’s not weird. You’re looking after her, aren’t you? And there’s no father listed, legally, so we can totally be her dads. How do you like that, June?”

June turns her head at the sound of her name, scans Chan for anything of interest, then swiftly turns her attention back to the block in her hand.

“I thought so,” Chan says, nodding. “There’s a third one, too, but you can forget about him until he hauls his ass back from India.”

Seungkwan sighs, put-upon. As much as he’s worried by the implications of such a title, he secretly quite likes the idea of being Kwannie Appa, and Chan’s minimal convincing is enough for him to drop the pretence. “Alright, then. You’ve gone from one mom to three dads, baby. I hope you don’t mind.”

June drags the triangle block across the board, from the square hole over to the triangle one, and uses both hands to press it through the gap. When it falls through with a clunk, she whips her head around to look at him expectantly.

He immediately claps for her, gasping in delight. “Wow, look at that! You did it!”

Over at the kitchen counter, Chan gets out all the fruit they’d picked up on the last grocery run—the day before June was brought to them, they’ll really have to go again soon—and sets about peeling the oranges, carving the mango, and slicing a banana into small pieces June can handle. Seungkwan watches June figure out the rest of the blocks, and the silence is comfortable.

Then he says, “I think I’m going to go and visit Jiseong.”

Chan’s movements slow, glancing up at him over the counter. “In jail?”

“Yeah. I want to talk to her.”

Chan turns again, scooping the fruit into two bowls and the banana pieces into a plastic baby bowl. “About June?”

He nods, eyes fixed on June’s clumsy hands. “And everything else.”

Chan comes to sit back down beside them on the floor, handing Seungkwan his fruit and showing June her bowl. “Hey, look at this. It’s called banana. Try not to get it everywhere, okay?”

June stares down the bowl for a few seconds, then decidedly sticks her hand in, squashing a piece of banana with clumsy fingers. She picks out the mush and inspects it silently. When it passes her inspection, she shoves her fingers into her mouth, awkwardly working the mush between her three front teeth and tenacious gums.

“You like that?” Seungkwan asks.

To his surprise, he’s rewarded with a smile, and a small laugh from June, who goes to get another piece, laughing again when it slides between her fingers.

“Oh, that’s a good sign,” he says.

Chan is smiling down at June, helping her steady the bowl. “We’ll have to get her more banana.”

“Naaa,” June agrees. “Naaaaa!”

“Yeah, banana,” Chan grins, and June shakes her fists in excitement.

Chan didn’t lie to the police officers when he said he was used to handling kids, but Seungkwan had forgotten just how good he is with them. He’s really, really glad Chan is here.

“Okay,” Chan says, after another minute of watching June happily pick out the banana. Seungkwan looks up at him, elbows resting on the floor, and Chan’s gaze is level. “I think you deserve a second chance with her, and she with you. But I know how you are. It’ll set you back by years if she’s not interested in talking, or she doesn’t give you what you want. Just be prepared for her to be different.”

“I know. I am. It won’t be a happy family reunion, but I know I have to see her.”

Chan nods. “Good luck, then. And be careful.”

-

He takes a taxi to Sasanggu Jail, and a warden shows him into the small visitation room after a quick pat down. As he sits and waits on his side of the plastic screen, nerves eat at him in a way he hasn’t felt for a long time. Jiseong has been nothing more than a distant part of his memory for so long that waiting for her here feels like some sort of dream.

After a few minutes, a warden appears at the opposite door, ushering Jiseong in. Her long hair hangs over her face, but she still catches sight of him when she rounds the door, staring at him with eyes wide and dark.

“Move,” the warden orders, taking a stance by the door.

Seungkwan blinks back the tears that have sprung from nowhere, attempting a smile for her. “Hi.”

Jiseong’s fingers twitch, and she shuffles over the chair, sitting on the edge of it like she isn’t sure if she’s staying. “Seungkwan?” she finally says, voice small, thin, but so startlingly familiar that he can suddenly smell the foster home building, stark and clean.

“Yes,” he says, blinking rapidly. “I missed you.”

“You’re so grown,” she whispers. “In my head, you always stayed the same. But look at you.”

“It’s been a long time. You look different too.”

She looks him up and down. “I can’t believe you’re here. Who told you?”

“About the criminal charges? The police, obviously. I’m your only family. Did you think I wouldn’t know?”

“I never thought I’d be meeting you here. I didn’t want you to come.”

“Why?” There’s a dull pain in his chest, and he wishes she’d meet his eyes.

“After all that running to get away from everything…. here we are. I turned like Dad after all.”

“No,” he says, voice clear, leaning forwards in his chair. “Don’t say that. You’re not like him.”

“You don’t know,” she says, her gaze hard on the floor. “I’ve done so many bad things.”

“I’ve seen your charges. Setting fire to an empty house does not make you the same as Dad. Nowhere near.”

That pulls a wry smile from her. “True. That one was pretty fun.”

He quickly decides he doesn’t want to go down that path of conversation. “Has no one told you where June is?”

Her head snaps up, then, eyes bright. “June? You have her?”

“Yes. They’ve left her with me, for now.”

“Thank God,” she says, stance finally loosening as she rests back in her chair. “Oh, fuck, I really thought they’d sent her back to Jongdeok. I thought I was starting the cycle all over again. I don’t want her to go there, Seungkwan, whatever happens.”

“It wasn’t as bad as you always thought it was, you know. And she’s still a baby. She has a better chance of getting adopted than we ever did.”

“No. I want her to stay with you.”

“And what about what I want?”

Her eyes flick over his face. “Did you ever get fostered? After I left?”

“Nearly.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Chan’s parents talked about adopting me the year after you left.”

“Chan’s parents,” she murmurs. “The kid from school.”

“He’s still my best friend.” He’s oddly touched she remembers him.

“Why nearly?”

“I said no.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want to move out of the home. In case you came back to get me.”

She tilts her head so that her hair falls over her face. “You always had too much faith in me.”

“I still love you, Noona. I don’t regret my choice.”

“I know I don’t deserve it, Seungkwan, but please—if you do love me, take her in. June deserves so much better than me. I’m not fit to be a mother. But you’ve always been so good, Seungkwan. You still are. I can see it. If you can adopt her, I’ll do everything I can to help you stay together as a family.”

He takes in a breath, lungs feeling tight. “I do want to. I want to take her in. I love her. As soon as my husband gets back, we’re going to talk about it properly.”

Jiseong closes her eyes, chest shaking with her breath. “Husband?”

“Would’ve sent you an invite if I had an address.”

“Is it Chan?”

“No,” he says, half-laughing. It might as well have been, considering he’s the one with Jiseong’s baby right now. “His name is Hansol. We got married about eight months ago. I’ll bring him to visit you sometime.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you want to meet him?”

She stares. “Why do you want me to? Why won’t you leave me behind?”

“I know you want to get away from your old life, Jiseong, but I can’t help but miss you. I can’t help but care.”

She pauses to swallow, shaking her head. “I’m so sorry, Seungkwan. For everything.”

He doesn’t know how to take that. It took her arrest and imprisonment to reunite them, to get something like an apology from her. The words can only taste bitter in the air.

“I know,” he says anyway. “I love you. I’ve missed you, and June misses you. She’s been looking around for you ever since she arrived with me.”

Jiseong rubs her face withs her hands, looking past Seungkwan with red eyes. “She loves it when you sing to her. She likes her giraffe toy the most, the one that’s really worn and shitty. She loves that kid’s show with the animated cars on EBS. Always watches full episodes without getting distracted. God, I miss her.”

It cuts deep, knowing that she misses June, but she never seemed to miss Seungkwan. That, for whatever reason, she never felt like she needed to go back for him.

“I’ll bring her to see you when things are more settled, if I’m allowed.”

“If you’re allowed,” she agrees. “If you can’t, it’s okay. I know she’ll be okay with you.”

“Last time you saw me I was still picking my nose and slacking off studying. How could you possibly know that?”

“Because you’re too good, Seungkwan. You always have been.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is true.” Her words are certain, like it’s a biblical truth.

The warden enters the room again. “Your time is up.”

“Look after her,” Jiseong says, leaning forwards to address him directly through the plastic screen. “Thank you, and I’m sorry. I love you, Seungkwan.”

“I love you too,” he says, without moving from his chair. “I’ll be back to see you.”

“It’s okay if you aren’t,” she says, backing out of the room as the warden watches her. “It’s okay. You’ve done well. I wish you all the best.”

The warden shuts the door behind her, and Seungkwan is left alone.

-

The thing is, this cooperation they have now, over June and everything that comes with her—it’s new to them. Historically, everything between Seungkwan and Chan has always been, first and foremost, a competition.

They’re both stubborn as hell by nature, so from Seungkwan’s earliest memories with Chan—freeze-tag on the playground at ten years old, running flat out to avoid the taggers touch—it’s always been like that between them. By the time they were twelve and thirteen and fast friends, they were both entering the school talent show purely out of competition with each other. Chan had said that he could win with dance, and Seungkwan had said he could win with a song, and then they’d practised together for weeks. Neither of them had won, but Chan had come second and Seungkwan had come fourth, which was all that really mattered to them. Chan had held it over his head for years.

At fifteen, Seungkwan had joined the volleyball team, and Chan went to cheer for the opposite team out of principle. At sixteen, he’d set the high score on the ancient pinball machine at the local arcade, and Chan had collected coins and worked to beat it only days later. At seventeen, he comes out as bisexual, at the same time as Chan comes out as gay. At eighteen, he gets into Ajou University, and a year later, Chan enrols at the University of Ulsan—it’s newer, flashier, and higher up in the league tables.

But it was always kind of a joke. Sort of. The competitive streak between them is real—Hansol has definitively banned Monopoly from ever being played in their vicinity—but they’ve always been fast friends, have rarely actually held grudges or anger between them about something they were competing over. There had been some harsh words said, occasionally, in moments of bitterness, but Seungkwan had never fallen out of love with Chan, for all his drive and passion, the things he’s capable of when he puts his mind to it. He knows this with stark clarity for the first time at nineteen, after travelling across the country to see Chan perform with his campus dance troupe. He sees him on the stage and thinks, _he could do anything. He could have everything._

After his performance, Seungkwan meets him with a hug, trying to hold back tears, because he’s having a bit of a moment, here. He’s seen Chan dance plenty of times before, but their time at separate universities has been the longest stretch of time they’ve spent apart, and coming back to watch him is like jumping head first into the ocean. Everything is the wrong way up, all underwater and confusing, and he doesn’t know how to come up for air, all he knows is Chan, encompassing and strong.

“What are you crying for!” Chan exclaims, laughing and pulling him away from the rest of his dance team. “It was a hip-hop piece!”

“I know, but you’re so—you’re so grown now Chan, it’s not even funny—”

“It’s pretty funny,” he says, laughing again. “You’re a sap.”

“I know,” he says, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Let me be. You were really good, you know?”

“Aren’t I always?”

“I’m trying to pay you a compliment, here!”

They pass through the backstage together, but only just make it to the lobby before Chan turns to the sound of someone approaching them.

“Hey,” the most handsome man he’s ever seen says, coming up to Chan and patting him on the arm. “You were amazing out there. Seriously, I had no idea you could dance like that!”

“Thanks,” Chan says, and his demeanour changes so fast that Seungkwan nearly gets whiplash. “I’m glad you liked it. I was worried you guys might find it boring, I know the whole thing was pretty long…”

“Oh, no, Jungwoo thought the same. He went to catch up with someone else, I think, but I know he thought it was really cool too. Your team was the best, obviously.”

“You’re just saying that,” Chan smiles, and Seungkwan stares. He can’t quite believe what he’s seeing—Chan is practically simpering over this boy.

“I was a boy scout. I’ve never told a lie in my life,” handsome guy says, putting a hand over his heart.

Chan laughs, face practically glowing, then gestures to Seungkwan. “This is my best friend from home, Seungkwan. Seungkwan, this is my roommate, Hansol.”

“Hi,” Hansol says, with a smile that makes him feel lightheaded. “It’s nice to meet you. Chan talks about you a lot.”

Seungkwan raises his eyebrows at Chan, who turns away to suppress a smile. “Does he, now?”

“All good things, I promise,” Hansol says, a twinkle in his eye. “Mostly, anyway.”

“Well, we’re in luck. I was about to take Chan out for food,” he says, ignoring Chan’s _you were?_ “You want to join us?”

“I’d love to,” Hansol says, easy as anything. “Where are we going?”

Hansol fits between the two of them with amazing ease—he’s good at going with the flow of things, attentive to their conversation even if he doesn’t understand everything they’re talking about, laughing at Seungkwan’s jokes and supplying him with stories about Chan’s first night drinking. It’s the most fun he’s had in a long time, and when Hansol gives him his Kakao ID at the end of the night, he can’t help but feel entirely too gratified.

“Is he gay?” he asks Chan as soon as Hansol is out of sight, the two of them walking to the station in the late evening light. “Do you know? Or are you hopelessly crushing on a straight guy?”

Chan chokes on a surprised laugh. “What? What are you talking about?”

“Don’t give me that, you’re besotted! Is he at least into guys?”

“Yeah!” Chan says, turning to check Hansol is really out of sight. “Yes, he is, we both go to the queer society, so I’m pretty sure he is.”

“You walked right into this one.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, but he’s a terrible liar, avoiding Seungkwan’s eyes and going pink at the ears.

“You’re painfully obvious,” Seungkwan grins. “You’d better hurry up and ask him out, or I might get there first.”

“Hey,” he says. “You can’t have this one. He’s too good for you.”

“I have a fair shot, don’t I? Shouldn’t have introduced us if you didn’t want me to see what you’ve been harbouring over here.”

“I haven’t been harbouring anything,” he says, but he sounds less sure this time. “I don’t know if he’s into me like that.”

“He totally is. I know I only just met him, but I think he’s into you too, honestly.”

Chan looks up at him before they cross a street together. “I don’t know. From what I saw today, I think he liked you a lot.”

“Maybe we should both ask him out. See what he says.”

Chan frowns at him. “He’s a person. He’s not a toy we can pull at both ends.”

“So get a move on and ask him first.”

So, perhaps seeing Chan today has made it clear to him that Chan has no interest in Seungkwan romantically. He’s got his eyes on this pretty SoundCloud rapper boy, and that’s fine, because Seungkwan can move on, probably, maybe, eventually. But it still hurts, and he still finds himself pushing Chan’s buttons about it, trying to get a result he can swallow.

They stop at the entrance to the train station, and Chan gives him a look he’s never seen on his face before. He’s not sure what he means, but it doesn’t make him feel good.

“What’s up with you?” he asks, face half-lit under an orange streetlamp.

“Nothing.”

“Are you mad that I didn’t tell you about him?”

“No,” he says, though the answer is definitely _yes_ , _and I’m also mad at myself for feeling like this, and at Hansol for being so perfect for you instead._

“Then stop being so moody,” he says, suddenly sounding exhausted. “Just ask him out if you like him.”

“This isn’t about me,” Seungkwan says.

“Then what is it about?”

He crosses his arms, looking up at the clock on the side of the building. “It doesn’t matter. Forget it. I’ve got to catch my train.”

He and Chan have definitely fought before, but this is the only time he can remember seeing Chan disappointed in him. “Fine.”

He bites his lip. “I’ll see you next weekend?” They’d arranged for Chan to visit Seungkwan on his campus, and he desperately doesn’t want to leave things on a bad note until then.

“Sure,” Chan says. “See you.”

The next weekend, Chan claims to be sick—Hansol turns up in his stead, who doesn’t seem to be at all perturbed by this turn of events. It’s what turns out to be their first date, and he has a surprisingly fun day with Hansol, wandering around Seoul until late.

Still, Seungkwan can’t help but feel like something is missing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things r getting spicy :D thank u for the lovely comments last chapter!! i really appreciated all your kind words <3


	3. Chan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> since the last chapter, we had a maknaes unit confirmed on semicolon (i could not believe my eyes) and a teaser for said track, which is v exciting!!! u r welcome for summoning them everyone

June has this habit of using anything around her to try and stand. Any piece of furniture that she can grab onto and hoist herself up with is fair game. Even better if it’s big, and she can shuffle along around the room with it, a prop to help her walk around on her own. The baby book he’s been reading calls it cruising.

The problem is that she keeps trying to grab onto the sofa to cruise along the living room, but the sofa is covered in a throw that will come off when pulled. So June stands, grasping onto the sofa, and then falls right back when the throw comes loose under her grip. The diaper softens her landing, but the throw is half strewn over her, and the shock of it makes her wail loudly, face all screwed up and red.

“Oh, no,” he murmurs, ducking in to pick her up and carry her in his arms, abandoning the vegetables he’d been chopping. “It’s okay. You’re okay, baby, come on now.”

“We need to get rid of that throw,” Seungkwan says, pausing in his laundry folding. “She can’t handle all this betrayal from the sofa. If only it didn’t look so shitty underneath.”

“If I can get some hooks, or something, I could try and attach it to the sofa more securely.” He rocks June against his hip gently. “Come on, June. It’s not that bad, right? You’re okay.”

“Hey, June,” Seungkwan says, between her wails into Chan’s shoulder. “Look over here. Look at this!”

Chan turns to angle June the right way, but she continues to bury her head into his shoulder, fists gripping his shirt. “Look at Kwannie Appa, June. You see him? He’s got something for you.”

June continues to wail, but moves her head to look over at Seungkwan, cheeks damp and flushed with the stress.

Seungkwan lifts his hands in front of his face, covering it from view. Then he opens his hands up and pulls a face at her, eyes wide and mouth open. “Peekaboo!”

A sob dies in her throat, and she stares at Seungkwan, processing this new development.

Seungkwan hides his face again, then moves his hands out, puffing his cheeks out. “Here I am!”

June continues to stare, eyes glassy, tears slowed. “Where’s Appa?” Chan says when Seungkwan hides his face again.

June reaches out to pull at one of Seungkwan’s hands, and he moves them again, laughing slightly. “Yes, it’s me! Well done!”

June looks up at Chan, questioningly.

“Yes, I know. He’s an idiot. Do you want to sit with him for a bit? It’ll make him feel better.”

June looks back down at Seungkwan, who peeks between his hands again, voice light as he says, “June isn’t impressed!”

June bats at one of his hands, displeased, then starts squirming to be put down again.

“No, I don’t think she is. But at least she’s over the fall.” He puts her down next to the walker, which she ignores in favour of crawling over to the building blocks. “She’s probably going to be a child prodigy or something. What sort of baby doesn’t fall for the peekaboo trick?”

“I can already see the private tutoring bills,” Seungkwan sighs, watching her grapple with the plastic bricks. “It’s a good thing I’m starting work again, I suppose.”

He sits back down with his vegetables, listening to June bang her blocks together and babble incoherently. She keeps that up for a while, until she gets tired of shrieking and starts clapping to herself after every successful tower is built, before knocking it down again, and rebuilding from scratch.

In this rare interlude of moderate quiet, Chan takes a breath in, and says,

“So, I was wondering how you’d feel about inviting my parents over.”

Seungkwan blinks, eyes clearing as he looks over at Chan. “Oh, wow. What have you told them about all of this?”

“I haven’t told them about June. I wasn’t sure how much you’d want me to say. But you know my parents—they’ll want to know all about it, every detail.”

“You really haven’t told them anything?”

“Only that I was moving in with you, and about your leg and stuff. They definitely would’ve come over by now if I’d told them about the baby.”

“I did wonder why Eomma hadn’t sent me a message about it,” he murmurs, looking down at June again. “You’re right. We should probably have them over.”

“Definitely.”

“I don’t know how Eomma is going to take the news that she’s a grandmother now.”

“She’ll be fine. God knows she’s been telling me she wants grandkids for long enough.”

Seungkwan raises an eyebrow. “Even though…?”

He rolls his eyes. “She said I would have to find a way, and told me to look out for babies left under bridges, or something. She doesn’t care if I get a boyfriend or not, she just wants me to give her a new baby to dote on.”

Seungkwan snorts. “June isn’t quite from under a bridge, but it’s a close thing. They said that Jiseong was homeless when she was arrested.”

“I suppose miracles do happen,” he says. “Sisters can come back from the dead, gay men can have babies, and, despite all of this, Hansol is still in the Himalayas.”

-

Sometimes, he can’t really believe where he is, what he’s doing.

When he heaves the groceries bags through the apartment door—Seungkwan and Hansol’s apartment door, where he’s been living for three weeks now—Seungkwan is lifting June up and down on his knee, saying, “Wow, June, look at you go! You’re flying!”

“They were out of the shampoo you wanted, so I got a different brand,” he says, dumping the bags on the floor and stretching his back out. “But I got everything else just fine.”

“And now Appa is back!” Seungkwan continues, turning June to face Chan and lifting her up high again. She squeals, high and clear, waving her arms around in excitement. “And he’s brought us food! Wonderful food!”

As he puts the groceries away, he wonders if perhaps he slipped into another universe somewhere. One where Hansol doesn’t exist, and Chan had found himself marrying Seungkwan instead, and June has fallen into their lives all of a sudden, a blessing from Seungkwan’s faded past. Then he feels an unnerving guilt for thinking like that, because Hansol is one of his best friends, and so perfectly matched with Seungkwan, and June isn’t his baby.

Sometimes, when he plays with June, or makes Seungkwan food, or gets into bed with him, it feels like home. It feels like he’s been doing this his whole life. Other times, he feels like a stranger in his own skin.

“Eomma messaged me,” Seungkwan says, yanking him out of his thoughts. He’s put June in her bouncer—which she’s thankfully growing more accustomed to, happily rocking herself in the corner—and sitting back in his desk chair. “Told me off for keeping secrets, and demanded she come over tomorrow night to meet June.”

“Yeah, she texted me that too,” he says, shutting the cupboard in front of him. “I’ll make us kimchi bibimbap, I think.”

“That sounds amazing,” Seungkwan says, twirling on his god-forsaken chair to face his computer screen again. “I love you so much.”

Sometimes, it feels like he’s wasting away here, in this fantasy. The guilt eats at him whenever he closes his eyes at night, listening to Seungkwan’s soft breathing next to him. _Tell him,_ it says. _Tell him the truth, or leave._

But he never does either of those things. Instead, he gets up early to feed June, and does his chores as penance, and faces a new day where he’s in love with his best friend, and his absent husband, and their almost-adopted baby. When it’s really early, and it’s just him and June and the rising sun on the living room floor, he confides in her.

“I’m not sure what I’ll do when Hansol comes back,” he whispers, sure Seungkwan is still asleep. “I’m going to miss you. I miss dancing so much right now, but I think I’ll miss you even more.”

June usually crawls away, or stares at him, or cries for food. He can’t blame her.

“I love you too,” he says, tone light as he finishes packing up the tins cupboard and moves onto the fridge. _Tell him properly._ “Eomma also said she’d bring over some of my old baby stuff. I didn’t even know they still had that sort of thing.”

“Oh, that’ll be so cute! Clothes and stuff, right? We could recreate your old baby pictures! Imagine how precious that would be!”

When his parents arrive with more than just a few clothes, he is of course the one who has to help them carry four boxes of baby items up from the car. They’re packed full of clothes and toys and equipment and several photo albums to pass around, though he’s sure they’re all pictures Seungkwan has already seen before.

“But we can show June, can’t we?” Eomma says as they’re standing in the elevator. “I know she’s young, but family history is important!”

“She’s Seungkwan’s kid, so it’s not really…” his protests die out with her dismissive hand in the air. Seungkwan has been a part of the family for a long time, after all—not to mention that he’s had no problem referring to Chan as June’s dad so far. He’s been trying not to look too hard into that.

“Seungkwan!” she calls when she enters the apartment, Seungkwan twisting in his seat to wave at them. “Where’s my grandchild!”

June’s shrieking baby babble calls out in response, and Seungkwan bounces her on his knee to keep her happy. “Eomma! Appa! You’re here!”

“And this is June!” Eomma says, rounding the couch to lean in close and wave at her granddaughter. “Hi, baby! Oh, she’s so beautiful, Seungkwan!”

“You can hold her, if you like,” Seungkwan offers, because her twitching hands are kind of obvious. “She’s a bit sensitive about new people, though.”

“You’ve kept the place well,” Appa remarks from beside him. Chan shuts the door behind them, looking around at the apartment he’d spent the day cleaning.

“Thanks. I’m getting pretty good at being Seungkwan’s housewife.” He places the box down by the door with a thump. “What’s in this box, Eomma? It weighs a ton.”

Eomma is predictably preoccupied with holding June in her arms, who’s staring up at her, seemingly baffled. “Halmoni, June,” Seungkwan prompts, loosely holding her hand to placate her. “This is your Halmoni.”

June stares, then looks over at Chan, and then back at Eomma. After a few seconds of indecision, her face screws up, and she ceremoniously bursts into tears.

“Oh, dear,” Eomma says lightly, her spirits undampened as she hands June back to Seungkwan. “Its looks like she’s really settled in here!”

“She’s definitely a lot happier than she was a few weeks ago.” Seungkwan raises his voice to be heard over the wailing as he holds June to his chest, her tears dribbling onto his shoulder. “She’s finally used to us now, I think. I was worried she might be waiting for my sister for a long time.”

Eomma skirts back around the couch again to fetch the mysterious box by Chan’s feet. “That’s wonderful. I’m sure she’ll do better here with you boys, anyhow. And Hansol, of course.”

“Still in the Himalayas?” Appa asks, and Chan smiles to himself.

“Unfortunately,” Seungkwan replies.

“Only because Seungkwan is being stubborn about it,” Chan says.

“Because I’ve already got you!” Seungkwan blows him a kiss from across the room. “You’re the only moral support I need.”

“What a wonderful surprise it will be for Hansol!” Eomma says, taking a seat next to Seungkwan and opening up the box on her lap.

Chan walks over to take June from Seungkwan, who’s still screaming, and starts to pace the room with her. She likes that, the regular movement of it, and it’s something Seungkwan still can’t do with his casted leg. “I sure hope it’ll be wonderful.”

Seungkwan swats at him as he passes. “It’ll be fine,” he scolds.

“I’m just saying,” he teases. “If I came back after a two-month trip in the mountains to you handing me a baby, I’d be turning right back around to go and live there permanently.”

“Good thing Hansol has a sense of responsibility,” Seungkwan says, smiling fondly at the stack of baby clothes Eomma is pulling out. “Unlike you.”

“I thought she might like these, too,” Eomma says like they hadn’t even spoken, holding up a few of Chan’s old books. He vaguely recognises some of the block-coloured covers that had sat on his childhood shelves for years.

“Why are you giving all my worldly possessions away to my worst enemy?” he complains, and June settles down against his chest, cries finally quietening as she watches the exchange on the couch. “Not you, baby. You’re the best girl.” He kisses the top of her head, bouncing her slightly.

“You think these are for me? They’re all for her,” Seungkwan says, picking up a teething ring, faded with age. “Your brain cells must be deteriorating faster than average.”

“Of course, there’s more in the box by the door, but for now we should find the photo albums,” Eomma says. “Will you boys stop bickering for a moment so we can show June how cute Chan looked at her age?”

“It’s doable,” Seungkwan says, at the same time as Chan says,

“I’m not sure about that, Eomma.”

“Oh, be quiet,” she tuts, gesturing for Appa to hand her the second box. “June, do you want to see some family history?”

“Wuhh,” June groans, wriggling in Chan’s grasp.

He puts her down on the floor, where she sits quietly for a moment, looking up at Seungkwan and Eomma in front of her.

“That’s what I thought,” Eomma says, right before June turns onto her hands and kneels to crawl across the room at an alarming speed. She’s over at the toy box before anyone can say anything, tipping it onto its side and looking around for something in the mess.

“There goes my tidying,” Chan sighs. It didn’t even last twenty minutes.

“And now you know the plight of a mother,” Eomma says, getting the photo album out anyway. “I could show you several similar scenes in this album, in fact.”

“I think I’ll stay here, then,” Chan says, sitting by June and helping her put the block game upright. She’s getting good at it now—the circle through the circle hole, the square through the square hole, the triangle through the triangle hole. Sometimes she’ll pick up other small toy parts to see if any of those will fit, too, and is never deterred when they don’t. Somehow, those moments always remind him of Hansol.

“Your loss,” Seungkwan singsongs, and Eomma moves closer so they can peer over the album together. It’s definitely one Seungkwan has already seen before, but he’s still got that ridiculous grin on his face, just like the time he found those terrible teenage selfies of them on his old phone backup. He loves nostalgic things like that.

“We actually updated this one recently,” Eomma says, flicking through to the middle of the book. “Appa found some pictures from the high school years, so you’re in here too, Seungkwan.”

“On second thought,” Chan says, standing and crossing the room again. Appa stands silently behind the couch, watching them progress through the photo album from above.

“I didn’t know you had any pictures of me,” Seungkwan says, watching the pages go through 2007, 2008, 2009, and there they are, standing together and grinning broadly at Appa’s exciting new digital camera.

They both shout at the same time at the sight, and June startles, looking up at them with concern.

“Oh, no! That hair!” Seungkwan shouts, clutching his own head. “I don’t miss it!”

“It’s terrible!” he laughs, pulling Seungkwan’s hands away as he tries to cover up his past self on the page. “You have to send me a copy of this, Eomma!”

“It’s for you,” she says, agreeably. “All of this is for you boys to keep.”

“Really?” Seungkwan looks up at her, then down at the book again. “Thank you so much, Eomma! I don’t have that many pictures from this age.”

“Then it’s a good thing Appa was obsessed with that camera of his, isn’t it?” Eomma says, pressing the photo album into his hands. “Now, let’s see if June will warm up to me if I have new toys, shall we?”

She stands from the couch to go for the third box, leaving the two of them to look at the photos together. Seungkwan is holding the book like he’s just been handed the family jewels, or something.

“Do you have any photobooks at all?” Chan asks as Seungkwan turns the page, splaying a hand out fondly over a picture of them playing football together.

“Hansol and I have one, from the last few years. But I don’t have a personal one. I don’t have anything left from the early years, and the home never took many individual pictures of us.”

“That sucks,” Chan says, smiling at a family picture on the next page. It’s from the Lunar New Year in 2012, the first time Seungkwan had joined their family for a celebration like that. “But at least you have the most important pictures here. You know, the ones with me.”

“Sure,” Seungkwan says, fighting a smile. “This picture of us playing in the mud is the most important moment of our childhood, I think.”

“I don’t even remember that day,” he admits through a laugh. “But it looks like we had a great time.”

“We’re so old now,” Seungkwan laments, resting back so that his head lolls against the top of the couch. “Don’t you think so, Appa?”

“I think that you’re the young men I always hoped you would grow up to be,” Appa says, voice soft, and Chan looks down at the pictures of one of his dance showcases. Eomma and Appa had always sat with Seungkwan at those, cheering him on together.

“Really?” he says, almost without meaning to. He’s unemployed, single, with no money and no home at twenty-four years old, nothing real to his name but all these unrequited, dead-end feelings—and his father can still be proud of him?

“Of course,” Appa says, putting a hand gently to the back of his head. “You’re doing well, son.”

Seungkwan is looking at him, too. He’s still got that look behind his eyes, the one brimming with sticky nostalgia.

“You’re Channie Appa for a reason, you know. I’m not going around appointing any old bum to be her dad.”

“I don’t think I had much choice in that,” he says, trying to deflect Seungkwan’s gaze with a small laugh.

“’Course not,” he smiles. “There’s no getting away from family, Lee Chan.”

-

Seungkwan is restless tonight. He’s been off the painkillers for a while now, and sometimes the awkward stiffness of his leg keeps him awake for a while, but looking after usually June tires them out enough to get a full night’s sleep. The bedroom is rarely a place for conversation anymore, not in the way Chan’s childhood bedroom was during their younger years.

But something new seems to be keeping Seungkwan up tonight, so perhaps he should bring back some old habits.

“What is it?” he mumbles into his pillow, half-asleep already.

“What?”

“What are you thinking about so hard?”

Seungkwan hums. “Just… you know. Everything.”

June is fast asleep in her crib on the other side of the room, so he speaks barely above a murmur. “Come on. What is it?”

Seungkwan shuffles slightly in the dark. “Do you really think Hansol will freak out? When he comes back?”

“What?” He’d forgotten he’d even said that. “No. I was just messing with you. Hansol is the most chill person on earth.”

“But we’re talking about a real-life baby. Our child. She’s a big deal. We haven’t even spoken about having children before this, not seriously. And I want to adopt her. I really do.” His voice is muffled, which he knows means Seungkwan is chewing on the inside of his mouth. “What if he doesn’t want to? What do we do then?”

“Don’t go there. It’s not worth thinking through all the worst-case scenarios right now. This isn’t an ordinary case of adoption, and I know he’ll understand that.”

“Maybe. Probably. I just miss him so much. I wish he were here.”

“So call him.”

“No. It’s okay. It would be nice if he were here, but we can manage. We’re doing well, right?”

“I think so,” he murmurs. “She’s going to be okay.”

“Yeah.” He sounds surer now. “And if Hansol doesn’t want to adopt her, I’ll just run away with you, because I’ve tricked you into looking after her this long already.”

“Tricked?” He snorts. “She loves me more than you. I think you’re the one that’s been tricked.”

“Like it or not, I’m still Appa Number One. Your delusion is all part of my ruse.”

“In your dreams,” he says, and in a moment of drowsy weakness, rolls over to sling an arm across Seungkwan’s shoulders. His body is warm, slightly tense. “Speaking of, please go to sleep now. June cried for so loudly over going to bed that I can still hear it ringing in my ears.”

“Okay. But what if I really did call Hansol,” Seungkwan says, and Chan sighs. “He’s had like, six weeks there already, which is a long time. The sooner he comes back, the sooner he can bond with June, and he won’t have so much to catch up on. At this rate, he might miss Jiseong’s trial.”

“Call him then.”

“But I don’t want him to resent me for cutting off his trip when I don’t urgently need him to come back.”

“Don’t you need him? Wouldn’t it be better to have him here than me?”

Seungkwan suddenly shifts, resting up on his elbow to look over at Chan in the dark. His arm falls from Seungkwan’s chest onto the bed between them. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, he’s your husband,” he says, rolling his eyes. “And I’m the homeless guy living on your couch.”

“Don’t. You know what you are, and it’s not that.”

“Then what?”

Seungkwan hovers there for a moment, gaze raking over Chan’s face. “Don’t you want to be here?”

“You already know how I feel about all of this. I love June. I’m happy to pause my life and help you out, and I’m grateful that you’re helping me out, too. But I want to know what your plan is. I want to know how you’re going to explain to Hansol that you’re adopting a child and appointing me as her second father.”

“I don’t know what there is to explain. Did you think we would leave you behind with something like this?”

“Adopting a child?” he asks, laughter in his voice. “Yes! Because that’s what married couples do when they have kids, Seungkwan! I’m supposed to be the uncle that visits every few weeks, not Channie Appa who lives with us permanently, your almost favourite parent.”

He can see Seungkwan blinking down at him, eyelashes dark in the faint light. “Chan,” he says, quieter. “You know you’re special, right? To both of us?”

“I know,” he says, shifting his weight to his shoulder to face him better. “You guys are special to me, too. But I need to know where I stand with all of this. For June’s sake as well as mine.”

Seungkwan raises a hand to tentatively card through Chan’s hair, splayed out on Hansol’s pillow. “You’re whatever you want to be. You’ve given me so much over the last few weeks. We’d give you anything back, you know.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“Oh yeah? What is it you want?” The familiar note of challenge rings in his voice.

“More than I deserve.”

“Impossible,” Seungkwan says, leaning down low. He can feel the warmth of his breath on his chin. “You deserve good things, Chan.”

“I don’t deserve all of this.”

“You do. I know you do.”

“It’s not my place. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

The dim light reflects in Seungkwan’s eyes as he looks up and down Chan’s face. Then he leans forwards, bridges the gap with shaky breath, and gently kisses Chan on the mouth.

His lips linger there for a few seconds, a sweet kiss unseen in the dark, almost like a dream. But it’s real. He can feel it on his lips even as he pulls back—a warm imprint, tingling and visceral.

“This could be your place,” Seungkwan says, almost a whisper. “With us. If you want it.”

“But—” he releases a breath, hot and suffocating, and tries to pull himself together. “Hansol—”

“He won’t mind,” he says, nervous hitch to his breath. “We’ve talked about this. A lot. He would kiss you too, if he were here.”

There’s silence between them for a few seconds as he works to process what he’s hearing. “Really?”

“Obviously. I wouldn’t say something like that and not mean it.”

“Oh my God.”

“Sorry if that’s freaking you out,” Seungkwan murmurs. “Or if this isn’t what you want, that’s okay too. I can sleep on the couch until tomorrow.”

“Don’t be stupid. I can’t believe you just said all that.” Dropped it on him like it isn’t the life-altering, reality-changing statement that it is. “What does that even mean?”

“It means… you’re really important to me. To both of us. It means that Hansol and I have both liked you longer than we’ve liked each other, and we’ve been talking about that a lot lately. It means, we’d give you anything you wanted. You only have to ask.”

The silence is breathy. Warm.

“You’re going to have to give me, like, 5-10 working days to process this. At least.”

Seungkwan barely laughs, just looks over his face again, imploring. “You can just—you know, tell me what you want, or how you feel, any time. I’ll listen, I promise. I’ve always treasured you.”

“Yeah,” he says, mind racing. Seungkwan is offering him too much too fast, things he’d never dared dream of. He needs to know what he wants, first, if he can even begin to approach the possibilities so suddenly offered up to him. “You, too. You guys are so important to me.”

“I know,” Seungkwan says, smile in his voice. He finally shifts from resting on his arms to lying on his back again, sighing as he relaxes into the sheets. Having his shadow move out of Chan’s line of sight feels like being able to breathe again, though he didn’t know he’d stopped in the first place. “I love you, you know.”

“I love you too,” he says, soft, though he’s not sure what exactly they’re confessing to each other. But when Seungkwan doesn’t speak again, neither does he.

He doesn’t close his eyes for a long while, though, his heart racing too fast in his chest. From the stillness next to him, he can tell that Seungkwan lies awake for a long time, too.

-

June keeps dropping her toy giraffe periodically down the shopping aisle, then crying when they take a few steps away from it. At this point, Chan feels like he’s on giraffe duty, while Seungkwan picks out the items they’re actually here to get from the shelves, now deft on his crutches.

“I bet he doesn’t like being dropped like that, June. Don’t you want to put him here?” He carefully puts Mr. Giraffe into the baby chair beside her, and she tracks his movement with vague discontent. “You two can ride in the cart together, and he won’t slip out, and you can play with—hey, June—”

She yanks the toy from its spot and holds it out again, dangling over the edge, the same way it had fallen the past fifteen times.

“We need to get the giraffe a leash, or something,” he says, as Seungkwan comes back clutching a packet of cheese in one hand. “He has really bad discipline.”

“Do you think this is a good brand? They don’t have our usual.”

“Bwaah!” June says, throwing the giraffe at Seungkwan.

“June!” Chan says. “Are you being serious right now?”

“I don’t think they sell giraffe leashes here,” Seungkwan says, depositing the cheese into the cart.

“I’ll make one,” he says, going over to pick the plushie up again. “We’ll never have this problem again, I swear to god.” He dodges June’s hands with the plushie a few times, having her chase after it, gaze intent on getting grasp on her giraffe’s neck again. Then she laughs, and he quickly realises he shouldn’t make her bad behaviour into a game, and hastily stuffs it back into the child chair with her.

She doesn’t reach for it again this time, but only looks at the giraffe for a few seconds, and then gazes up at Chan. “Pah!” she says, reaching her hands out to Chan.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have any other toys,” he says, reaching out for some of the milk they’re passing by. “I’m not giving you the teething ring again.”

She wriggles, stretching out more urgently, making a little unhappy noise as she does.

“She wants to be picked up,” Seungkwan says, placing some baby yogurt pots on top of the cheese.

“I know, but she won’t want to be carried for long, and we can’t put her down here. Let’s just get through the last two aisles and go.”

“Uhh! Baah!!” June calls, bordering dangerously on tears.

Chan bends down to look her in the eye, and Seungkwan stops next to them. “I know, baby, but we can’t get you out yet. Can you wait a few more minutes?”

“Chan… did she just…?”

“Appaa!” June yells, breaking down into tears, tiny hands outstretched for Chan urgently. “Pahh!”

“Oh my God,” Seungkwan says. “She did.”

“Okay, come on, come on,” he says, unclipping June from the seat and hauling her up. “You can stay here, but you can’t go down, okay?” He secures June closer to him, holding her in one arm, attempting to navigate the cart with the other. “She likes to make things hard, huh?”

June wriggles against him at first, but he rocks her gently, arm firmly in place. She wails into his ear at the restraint, but he keeps her hoisted up against his hip. It’s not like she can crawl around on the grocery store floor like she clearly wants to, so why is Seungkwan standing there and blocking the—

Oh.

“Channie Appa,” Seungkwan says, beaming, as June chokes through a louder cry.

He blinks, looking down at June’s red face. “Well,” he says, trying to find an appropriate response. “I did tell you I was the favourite.”

Seungkwan’s delight is infectious, pulling a smile onto his face, but he still can’t help the undermining wave of guilt that floods him—an ugly, pressing sense that this is wrong, very wrong, that June’s first word is _Appa_ , that June’s first word is for _him_.

“I can’t believe she just did that,” Seungkwan says, laughing to himself, coming up to Chan’s side to nuzzle against June’s head. “You just did that, right? Is Channie your Appa?”

June releases another loud cry in response, burying her red face into Chan’s neck.

“Let’s just finish up before we get kicked out,” he says, awkwardly grasping onto the cart again with one hand.

“I’m going to go and see if this place has any baby books. I’ve just decided we need to record her first word,” Seungkwan announces, before striding off on his crutches.

“But the ice cream…!”

Seungkwan is long gone. He’ll get the damn ice cream himself, he supposes, opening the freezer door with one hand and carefully watching June’s head as he leans down to grab it, dumping it into the cart beside the milk.

“Aren’t you just full of surprises,” he murmurs into the top of June’s head, her hair soft and thin. Her crying seems to be slowing, somewhat—she’s all worn out and limp from their tiring visit, but still blatantly angry and petulant, hiding her face and whining every few seconds. “Appa, huh?”

“Uh-bah,” she says, morose.

He smiles and kisses the top of her head. “Yeah. I know.”

He can spot Seungkwan making his way back up to the aisle towards them, baby book in hand. For a second, he imagines Hansol is waiting for them at home—the four of them would cook together, eat together, spend the night in. Live together, watch June grow up. Be happy.

It aches in his chest. He wants it. More than anything.

-

He doesn’t bring it up again, though. He lies in bed for longer, thinks and thinks, mulls over how something like that could work. Even if Seungkwan is totally down to have Chan join them, what about Hansol? What about Chan’s life outside of the two of them, the fact that he still has nothing to offer, nowhere to go? There’s so much he doesn’t know, so much he isn’t sure about. And it’s a difficult topic to breach in the first place, even now that it’s been acknowledged between them. He wants to know just how long they’ve been thinking about this—if it’s half as long as he’s been suppressing similar thoughts—but it’s hard to ask. So he keeps it in his head.

He sleeps more on some nights, less on others. One thing that stays the same is that he’s good at waking up early, getting June out of the crib to feed her and play with her, and Seungkwan is decidedly not. Chan doesn’t mind, though. He’s used to waking up early from the days of holding early morning dance classes, so he can do this part of parenting with no problem. And Seungkwan is still healing, after all.

Besides that, it’s a privilege to be the one that June greets first thing in the morning, standing with a fierce grip on her crib bars, gawking at him and waiting to be picked up.

“Good morning,” he’ll say, quiet, and lift her up under the armpits, all warm and sleep soft. Take her through to the living room just before 6am, and feed the quiet, hungry baby her milk. Soft light bathes the room in an early morning glow, gentle and yellow. As summer bounds in, the light starts creeping earlier, and June is reluctant to sleep longer. It’s okay. He likes being with her.

It's one of these mornings that he’s waiting with her, patient as she spits out the bottle, only to take it back again. She keeps looking around for something.

“You want to drag Mr. Giraffe around by his leash again today?” he murmurs, guiding her back to the bottle. “I know you had so much fun doing that yesterday.”

“Buh,” she says, and gets her mouth around the nipple of the bottle.

“I know right,” he coos, rocking her a little. “I’m a genius for that leash.”

She puts both hands on the bottle in an attempt to steady it, and he smiles down at her.

“Sorry. I suppose I’m distracted, too. I need to talk to your Appa again. A lot on my mind right now, you know?”

June looks up at him, eyes wide. Then she spits out the bottle again, and burps.

“That’s right,” he says, laughing. “Better out than in. You want more?”

The sudden rattle of keys outside the apartment interrupts him, immediately followed by the sound of scraping in the lock. Chan starts, gathering June in both arms and standing up to face the front door.

Who else has a key to Seungkwan’s apartment? Who’s coming to visit without knocking at 6am?

A shout of Seungkwan’s name is on the tip of his tongue, but then the door swings open, and Hansol walks in. His hair flops in his eyes, and he’s looking at his feet as he shuts the door behind him.

Chan stares. Then, after a few seconds of silence, June gurgles. Probably looking for the bottle he’s now holding under her.

Hansol looks up, blinking at him. “Oh. Hey, man.”

“Hi,” he says, in a breath.

Hansol scratches his head, looking him up and down. “So, I’ve been travelling for like—too freaking long, dude, I don’t even know what day it is—and my head is killing me, so I’m gonna ask why you’re holding a baby in my living room at the crack of dawn after I’ve had some sleep, okay? Happy for you, though.”

“Okay,” he says, swaying a little in place. He lowers himself into the chair again, slowly, careful of June in his arms.

“Kwan in here?” He gestures to the main bedroom door, dropping his bag in the hallway.

“Yeah,” he says, faintly. June whines, and he holds the bottle back up to her face. “Watch out for his leg.”

“Alright,” Hansol says, saluting him before quietly opening the bedroom door. “Good to see you, Chan.”

“Yeah. You too.”

Hansol slides the door shut after him, and he can hear the faint murmurings of voices from inside the bedroom. His head is suddenly pounding, the sound of his heart loud in his ears.

Hansol is back.

June spits out her bottle again, eyes lingering on the bedroom door.

-

It didn’t take long for Hansol and Seungkwan to become stuck like glue. Even attending universities halfway across the country from each other, somehow Seungkwan managed to turn up at his and Hansol’s shared dorm room what felt like every week.

Luckily, Chan has always been good at making excuses. He has a paper due and is headed to the library to work on it; he made dinner plans with Mark and Yeonjun, and has to go right now; he’s got dance practise, he’s got an appointment, he’s got a society meeting. Anything but sitting in his bedroom as Seungkwan murmurs in Hansol’s ear and lies against him on the bed. Anything but turning down Hansol’s offer to see a movie with them, a well-meaning invitation for Chan to crash their date in the name of making him feel included.

He doesn’t know what’s wrong with them sometimes. It’s obvious to all three of them that he was the one who set them up in the first place, so of course he doesn’t have a problem with them going out on dates, or with their rapidly increasing levels of sexual tension, or the stubborn honeymoon phase of terribly shiny eyes and fond smiles. Of course he doesn’t. He just has a study class to attend, a party to go to, a meeting with a friend on the other side of the damn city, he has things to do, places to be that aren’t waiting around for Seungkwan and Hansol to detach at the mouth and shoot glances at him before sharing a look with each other that he clearly isn’t meant to see. He usually leaves the room at that point. He has to take a shower. He has to pick up food. He has to drive himself off the end of the earth.

Seungkwan asks him about it, once.

“Don’t you want to hang out with us together?”

He’d been working on his essay quietly until that point, lounging around on Hansol’s bed and waiting for him to get back from a late class. Chan doesn’t mind the quiet company, and had been peacefully focusing his own work, too. It was nice to just co-exist with Seungkwan for once.

Nice while it lasted, anyway.

“What?” His attention is stuck on the sentence in front of him. He can’t figure out what makes it sound so off.

“Hansol says you guys hang out a lot when I’m not here. And when I’m here and he’s out, you don’t have a problem with me either.” He lifts his head from his laptop screen. “But as soon as we’re in the same room, it’s like we’re infectious, or something.”

“Yeah, it’s called being sickeningly in love,” he says, underlining the whole thing to come back to later. “Excuse me if I don’t want to third wheel you guys.”

“Chan…” Seungkwan says, biting his lip. He pauses, and Chan raises his eyebrows.

“Seungkwan?”

“If it’s because of any feelings, you can be honest with me. And we’ll be honest with you. I just want to clear the air so it’s easier for us all to hang out together.”

“I told you this before, and I’ll say it again. I don’t like Hansol like that. I don’t have a problem with you two dating. Seriously. It’s not like that.”

Seungkwan’s eyes wander over his face, looking for the truth. “You don’t?”

“Definitely not,” he lies. “I’m happy for you two. I just don’t want to be peripherally involved in all of your make-out sessions, you know?”

Seungkwan nods, slowly, looking away. “Sure. We can tone it down, then.”

“It’s fine, I just—”

“No, it’s okay. We will. It’s not fair on you when we capitalise the bedroom. I want to keep you around, you know? I love you, too. You’re my best friend.”

“I know,” he says, and his voice sounds flat to his own ears. “Sorry for running off all the time.”

“It’s okay. We’re adjusting.” He smiles, and it’s honest, but small. “Also, you really should come out with us tonight. We want you there, you know. We’re not just asking to be nice.”

He glances up to meet Seungkwan’s eyes. “You sure about that?”

“Of course! As if I would give anything to you out of courtesy.” He tsks, looking back down at his screen. “You should know me better by now.”

“Excuse me for not wanting to crash your honeymoon phase!”

“Honeymoon phase,” Seungkwan scoffs. “Hansol had me helping him clean your bathroom yesterday, you know. When you see certain things, the honeymoon phase dies an instant death.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s true.”

The bedroom door swings open, then, and Hansol stands in the doorway, slipping his bag from his shoulder. “Hey,” he greets, throwing Chan a packet of Pepero. “Are we going straight out?” That’s directed at Seungkwan, the apartment keys held loose in his hand.

“Yes!” Seungkwan says, closing his laptop and hopping up from the bed. “Chan is coming with us, too!”

“I am?” he asks, looking up from the Pepero packet. He’d almost forgotten the request he’d sent Hansol for some earlier that day, craving snacks after lunch. Something in his chest murmurs as he realises Hansol had stopped off just for him—he doesn’t have anything else in his hands.

“Yes, you are,” Seungkwan says, hand snaking around his wrist and yanking him up from his bed. “Get your shoes on.”

When they’re walking through Hangang park together, eyes reflecting the glowing seasonal lights strung between the trees, Seungkwan reaches out to take his hand. That’s nothing new for them, but now he’s got Hansol in the other hand, and Chan wonders if this is all Seungkwan knows; if, after all these years of being his best friend and the closest thing he has to family, he doesn’t know how to let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm still planning to get chapter 4 out next saturday, but i'm starting this new position on monday, so we'll see how the week goes. semicolon comes out literally half an hour after i start my first working day LOL but it'll be fun to come back to!! i hope you all enjoy the new release!!


	4. Hansol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when i started this fic i wasn't even sure if i was going to get to the end because i was so unsure about myself, the work, whether it was any good, whether i had the time or motivation to finish it... but i've been enjoying posting this so much, and enjoyed writing each chapter more and more as they went on. i really have to thank every lovely comment left, everyone who has messaged me or left kind words about it-every one means so much to me and has made me smile!! i really appreciate it <3
> 
> apologies for the way these author notes have basically been diary entries so far, but thank you for the well wishes about work too, my first week went pretty well! i'm feeling a lot better about things in general :)
> 
> without further ado, i hope you enjoy the chapter!

Seungkwan stirs when he closes the bedroom door, raising his head from the pillow and squinting into the low-lit room. “Huh?”

The first thing Hansol notices is the crib at the end of the bed—that’s where Chan’s baby came from, he supposes—and then the bulky white cast on Seungkwan’s leg, peeking out from under the blankets. The sheets on his side of the bed are pushed back, like they’ve been slept in.

“I can’t wait to hear the story, Mr. Trouble,” he says, discarding his jacket over the side of the crib and crawling into his side of the bed. He braces himself on his hands to peer over at Seungkwan’s face, just to kiss him once before bed, really convince himself that he’s back home.

Right as he does so, Seungkwan sits up with a start, and their foreheads bump together. “Hansol?” Astonishment pitches his usual early morning gravel. “What? What the fuck day is it?”

“I came back a few days early,” he explains through a soft laugh, landing the kiss on Seungkwan’s mouth. “I’ll tell you all about it when I’m more awake.”

“Oh my God,” Seungkwan says, pushing himself up further as Hansol collapses sideways onto his pillow. The sheets are warm against the bare skin of his arms, so starts stripping away all his sweaty flight clothing to bask in the gentle heat. “You’re back!”

“You bet,” he says, accepting the longer kiss when his shirt is barely off, still caught on his arms as Seungkwan presses close. “I missed you.”

“I missed you so much,” Seungkwan says, pecking along his cheek a few times for good measure, cupping his face close as Hansol tries to wrangle his trousers off. “You would not believe the crazy stuff that’s happened since you’ve been away.”

“It sounds like we have a lot to catch up on,” he murmurs, pulling the blankets up around him. “Can we do it after I’ve slept for at least, like, a day? I think I’m about to black out, for real.”

“Of course,” Seungkwan says, running a hand through his hair. “I can’t believe you’re back. The last two months have felt like a lifetime.”

“I know what you mean.” He buries his face into the pillow, the real pillow on his real bed, a blessed novelty after so many weeks of sleeping in the tent, or when he was lucky, on dewy grass in a quiet valley.

“I can’t wait to hear about it,” Seungkwan says, stroking Hansol’s hair gently.

“Mm,” he says, and then he’s out like a light.

-

He came back just in time to see Seungkwan’s cast, it seems, because he’s due to get it taken off in just a few days, right before Hansol’s original due date home. Jiseong’s trial is set for three weeks from now, and June is with them for the foreseeable future, until the trial at the very least. After they hug and greet each other properly, Chan admits he doesn’t have any plan for moving out, either, but that Soonyoung is working on setting up his own dance studio, so he’ll be out of their hair as soon as he’s able to take up a position there.

“No, no, no,” he says, patting Chan on the back. “Don’t worry about it, seriously. I can’t believe I missed the two-month sleepover you guys were having here without me. You have to stay with us for a bit longer to make up for it.”

“June will throw a fit if you up and leave suddenly, so no doing that please, Mr. Lee,” Seungkwan instructs from the table, where June is having her evening meal. Hansol had woken up late-afternoon, just early enough to say hello before her bedtime.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Chan says, but Hansol can see the slight tension in his frame, the worry in his bitten lip. He wonders if it was brought on by his return, or if he’s been unsure about this whole thing for a while, now. By the way Seungkwan keeps glancing between them, he thinks he knows which it is.

When Chan offers to settle June down for bed, he tactfully shuts the bedroom door behind him, his soft singing and June’s tired murmuring muted by the apartment walls.

“Some other stuff happened too,” Seungkwan says in a low voice as soon as the door is closed. “I kissed Chan.”

“Oh, wow. Is that what he’s so tense about?”

“Probably. It was a few weeks ago, in the middle of the night, and I offered him all these things and he hasn’t mentioned it since. So I don’t know what to make of it.”

“Did you explain everything?”

“Well,” he pulls a face. “A bit. I told him that we’ve both liked him for a while, and that he could have a place with us, here.”

They pause for a moment, and Seungkwan looks at him, fidgety.

“Seungkwan,” he whines. “Is that it? Literally everything we’ve ever read on polyamoury says—”

“I know, I know, communication is key, but I said all the important bits, didn’t I? And I didn’t want to start doing too much with a baby on our hands, and with you being several countries away—you have to start telling us some stories when Chan comes back, by the way—but I told him I wanted him here, and that he could have a home here—”

“Did you explain what it is we’ve been thinking about?”

“A bit. Like I said, I thought it was better to wait for you. The kiss was kind of impulsive.”

He raises an eyebrow at him. “Wow.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” Seungkwan says, glancing at the bedroom door. “He got the gist of it, but it’s probably helpful if you talk to him too, when you can. I’m going back to work on Friday, once I have the cast off, so you guys will have the place and June to yourselves.”

“Right. I’ll talk to him then, and properly meet June. I hope she won’t keep looking at me like I’m a home invader for too long.”

“She looks at everyone like that at first. She’ll warm up to you.” Seungkwan smiles, a little turn up of the mouth, but glances up at Hansol with anxious eyes. “You’re taking all this very well. Aren’t you a bit freaked out about coming home to a baby?”

He nods, humming. “I mean, yeah, it’s a surprise, but it’s not like I could expect you to do anything but keep her. She needs our help. So we should help her.”

Seungkwan beams up at him, eyes shining. “I knew you’d be alright with it. But you realise this isn’t temporary, right? Jiseong will almost certainly be charged with prison time, and she wants me to hold onto June. I want her to stay with us, too—she’ll become our legal ward, Hansol. Our child.”

“Wow,” he says, pausing to lean back in his seat. “Yeah, I guess so. You want to keep both our baby and a real baby? We’ll have our hands full.”

“Hey!” he laughs, swatting at him. “We’ve managed so far, haven’t we?”

“You don’t have to convince me, Kwan. I think it sounds good. They’ll liven up the household. Seems like they’re kind of inseparable at this point, too.”

Seungkwan rests his chin in his hand, fond. “She’s taken to him really well. He’s helped me out so much while you’ve been away.”

“Is that why you didn’t call me? You went through, like, three different emergencies while I was gone, but it’s funny how I’ve only just heard about them now. It was a nice excuse to keep him around, right?”

His mouth drops open. “Chan said the same thing! Why do you guys think I would break my leg to get him to stay here?”

“I didn’t say that! I’m just saying that the situation suited you pretty well, right?”

He scoffs, and smiles, genuine this time. “It wasn’t so bad. Stressful, at times, but it’s been really nice to have him here.”

“Have you been alright, really? How are you feeling about Jiseong coming back?”

Seungkwan shrinks back into his chair, aiming for nonchalance but landing more in apprehension. “It is what it is. She’s changed a lot. I can’t say it was an amazing reunion between us when I visited, but I’m just glad to know she’s still alive.” He sighs, deep, his lip twitching. “It upset me for a while, but I’m okay now. I’m really glad you came back early. You two boys are all I need.”

“Don’t let June hear you say that,” Chan says, emerging from the bedroom and carefully closing the door behind him.

“June is a given. I like her better than both of you, anyway,” Seungkwan says, watching Chan approach the table. “Are we ordering in? Celebrating a victorious return?”

“Please,” Hansol says, clasping his hands together. “I’ve missed Korean food so much. I think I might die if I don’t get some kimchi in my mouth right now.”

“I don’t mind staying in with June if you guys want to go out somewhere,” Chan offers, but Seungkwan is waving him away before he even finishes the sentence.

“Don’t be stupid, you’re not her babysitter. We’ll find a good place to order from and get a bunch of dishes. We bought some kimchi the other day if you’re already hungry,” he says to Hansol, gesturing vaguely at one of the cupboards.

“Starving, but it’ll be worth it if I wait for the food. There was a woman in Shimla who served us mutton curry after we climbed halfway up the mountain to reach the city, and I swear to god it was the best thing I’d ever tasted. I was so sweaty and tired, but that dish was like, the ultimate prize. We left a tip we couldn’t really afford to leave, but it was so worth it.”

“Wait, don’t start telling stories yet! Let’s order first so I can properly pay attention,” Seungkwan says, as Chan sits down at the table with them.

“I still can’t believe you really hiked across the Himalayas. I almost forgot, what with everything else going on here.”

“Wait until the photographer sends me her pictures. We saw some amazing sights. The snow in Himachal Pradesh was so stunning—like, genuinely breath-taking. I couldn’t stop looking at it, and fell face first into a ditch because of it. Korean winters will never be the same.”

“What are the people like? Do they think living on a mountain is normal over there?”

“Is anyone listening to me?” Seungkwan says, scribbling on the takeaway menu in front of him. “I think we should order all of these. Will it be enough?”

He slides the menu over to their side of the table. Chan glances down it and makes an agreeable noise, and Hansol picks it up, nodding. Seungkwan has underlined half the menu, and it all looks great to him. “Seems like you’ve got us covered, babe.”

Seungkwan rolls his eyes, letting out a huff of laughter. “The Himalayas didn’t change you much, did they?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, mind already half on the story about the high-elevation toy train railway he’d taken between cities.

“Nothing,” he smiles, dragging the menu back over and picking up his phone. “Keep quiet, you two, or at least go away so I can order all this in peace.”

He and Chan look at each other, then stand at the same time to move over to the couch, and Hansol starts to tell him about the trip to Darjeeling under his breath. Seungkwan launches into his phone voice on the other side of the room as Chan listens, eyes bright and attention captured. Hansol can feel Seungkwan’s eyes boring into the back of his head the whole time.

After they’re fed and full, Chan starts to get the blankets out, ready to take the couch for the night. Seungkwan tries to tell him off, but Chan shuts down his offer to share the bed so firmly that it takes all of them slightly aback. He wishes them a good night with a softer voice, and the two of them creep into their room, getting changed quietly so as not to disturb June. He wonders when their apartment suddenly got so crowded with life, with all these new people to love.

-

Out of nowhere, June bursts into tears on the floor next to him, and he mutters a soft _oh, no,_ before abandoning his article outline to swoop in and pick her up. With Seungkwan back at work and Chan out on a shop run, it’s just the two of them in the flat, and June keeps looking over at him with so much blatant mistrust and obvious curiosity. Still, he thought he might get away without a crying fit until Chan got back, at least. “Aren’t we friends yet, June? What happened to all that bonding over bananas yesterday?”

June wails and flails in his grasp, and he starts to walk around the room, bouncing her in his arms. She’d been happily playing with her toy phone earlier—holding it up to her ear and babbling into it enthusiastically, he couldn’t help but laugh and take a video—and he’d been hopeful that it was signalling an improvement in their relationship. Perhaps not.

“What is it, huh? You hungry? Is it time for some milk, maybe?”

June starts screaming in response, red in the face, cheeks damp and snotty. He picks a tissue out from the box on the table to clean her up a bit, but she furiously twists herself away from it.

“You’re just like your Kwannie Appa, you know. If you want attention, you just have to ask for it. Do you want to hear a story? Did you hear I went to the Himalayas?”

June sobs and hiccups, but her screaming lessons, and she clutches the collar of his shirt in one of her tiny baby hands.

“Where’s the Himalayas, you ask? It’s this long ass mountain range that reaches all across Asia. India, Nepal, China, you know. Really famous. Mount Everest is there. You heard of that? Really big mountain. Huge. I didn’t climb Everest, but I saw it from a helicopter, and I visited loads of other cool places. Did you know that farmers in the Himalayas make little steps out of the earth to get the most out of their land on the slopes? It looks really cool, and it’s pretty handy to walk up, too. A lot of communities rely on their own grown food in the winter months, when they can’t get supplies up to the villages because of the avalanches, or the storms. The people there have to share everything, and trust each other. They have some amazing communities because of it.”

June stares at him, quiet, eyes round and unblinking.

“That’s more like it. Now, I’m sure you weren’t crying because you wanted to know about farming methods in the Himalayas. What is it you wanted?”

June squirms, whimpering, tears staining her face. He holds her up and sniffs her diaper—

“Oh, yeah, that’s it. Okay, sure, I can get that for you. I’ve never done it before, but how hard can it be?”

He rolls out the baby mat that he’s sure they didn’t have before he left, but definitely recognises from somewhere, and sets her down on her back. June settles down almost completely when she’s laid back on it, which he takes as a sign that he’s on the right track—but he’s not really sure what to do from here.

“Do you have any hints for me?” he asks, and June looks up at him, wriggling her legs in the air at him. “Great, thanks.”

He goes for the tabs at the side of the diaper, and that seems to be the answer, as it loosens up easily enough. It unfortunately also releases a very strong smell of poop, prompting him to back up slightly and waft a hand in front of his face.

“God, that’s an impressive dump, Juney.” The front door opens as he speaks, and Chan stands in the doorway, glancing across the room at him without bothering to suppress his amused smile. “Chan! Come and smell this, our baby is a beast!”

“I’ve changed her enough to know, and I can smell it from here,” Chan says, kicking the door shut behind him and moving over to place the bags down in the kitchen. “Do you need any help with that?”

“Yeah, actually. I got it open, what now?”

Chan washes his hands quickly, grabbing a packet of fresh diapers and baby wipes from the counter. “You’ll need these. Wipe up as much of the poop as you can with the diaper, then fold it and get rid of it.”

“How do I get it off her?”

Chan kneels down next to him and folds his hand around June’s ankles. “Lift her like this, then slide the diaper out from under her—yeah, like that—then use the baby wipes to clean her up.”

June kicks again, smiling up at Chan, and Hansol narrowly avoids having a foot collide with his nose as he tries to make sure she’s clean. “Then the new one just goes on?”

“Yeah, same way. Ankles up, slide it under, then fasten at the sides.” He watches as Hansol carefully fastens her up again, while June bites on her fist impatiently. “Good job. You’re a natural.”

“It wasn’t too bad.” He picks June up and blows a raspberry against her stomach to celebrate their success, and she squeals, kicking her feet again. He lifts her into the air and laughs, and she giggles down at him. Chan gets up from the floor to get rid of the old wipe and diaper.

He puts June back down by her toy telephone and watches Chan retreat into the kitchen. When June seems to be back in her own world again, he stands to go and help him unpack the food.

“It’s alright,” Chan says, when Hansol approaches one of the bags. “You can go back to your article, if you like. It’s not too much.”

“It’s alright. Already lost my flow, so I might as well take a break.”

“Has it been going okay?”

“Yeah, fine. It’ll take a while for me to get it perfect, but coming back early gave me a few days head start anyway. I don’t think it’ll be too hard.”

“That’s good.”

“What about you? Heard any news about the dance studio yet?”

“It’s getting there. Soonyoung said I definitely have a job there, and I should expect a call from him in the next few weeks. He’s a lifesaver, honestly.”

“It’s only right that you get picked up by another studio, you know. You deserve it.”

Chan looks down at the tins in his hands. “Thanks. I’m really grateful to Soonyoung for asking for me. And to you guys too, obviously, for having me here. It’s been a much better work break than I expected, having June for company.”

“She’s a feisty one, isn’t she?”

“Things are never boring with her. It’s been a challenge, sometimes, but a really great one. Did Seungkwan tell you her birthday is coming up?”

“He mentioned it. Two weeks, right? And Jiseong’s trial is a few days later. It’s going to be a busy week for the Boos.”

“We should do something special. I know she won’t remember it, but it’s her first birthday, and she’s done so well adjusting to her new home! She deserves a party, and so do we.”

“I agree. We’ll talk about it when Kwan gets home.”

“Sure.”

Chan moves around to put the bags away, food successfully rehoused, and the silence between them is comfortable.

“Hey, Chan?” he says, as Chan starts to move over to the pile of laundry in the corner of the living room.

“Yeah?”

“Seungkwan told me that you guys talked, a bit.”

Chan slows in his movements, fingers absently dancing over the shirt in front of him. “More than a bit. It’s been seven weeks of not being able to shut him up.”

He smiles, and sits on the couch in front of June. “I believe it. But he told me that you talked about some real life things together, for once. You don’t have to decide anything yet, but if you want to sit with me, I can tell you my side of things.”

Chan looks at him, hesitance in his expression, and something else hidden behind sharp eyes. But then he puts the shirt back down and comes to sit beside him, and Hansol knows they’re both on the same page, here. Knows that they’ve both been keeping similar thoughts just below the surface.

“Okay,” he says, fiddling with the tassels on a cushion. “What’s your side?”

“My side isn’t that different to Seungkwan’s,” he admits, because he doesn’t want to create any illusions of walls between them. “We both agreed that if you ever wanted to join our relationship, we’d do whatever we could to make it work. I thought it was better to be clear about that, rather than whatever it was Seungkwan said to you in the middle of the night. We want you to join us.”

Chan is staring at him with wide eyes, like June had been earlier, as if he’s saying something completely unexpected. “Uh-huh?”

“It’s a step we should’ve done years ago, to be honest, when we were first dating, but Seungkwan wasn’t sure if it was what you wanted, and we were in a new relationship too, so we played it safe. But we’ve always felt that way about you. Like you’re our final part.”

Chan sucks in a breath. “Wow.”

“No pressure, or anything,” he says, hands in the air. “If you’d rather we leave this all behind and forget about it, we can do that too. It’s up to you. We’ll follow your lead on this one.”

Chan looks away from him, at June shuffling about on the floor with Mr. Giraffe in hand. She meets his eye and starts shuffling in his direction. “Why now? With everything going on, why would you want another big change like that?”

“I believe Seungkwan was the one to take this first step on that front,” he says, feeling his smile grow as Chan’s ears start to turn red. He wishes he could’ve been there to see it—Seungkwan kissing a sleep-soft Chan in their bed. “You’ll have to bring that one up with him. But I’ve only been back a few days, and even I can tell that it feels right. We haven’t lived this closely since university, have we? It feels good to have you here with us. We want to keep a hold of that, this time.”

June reaches Chan’s foot, shuffling forwards to grab onto the edge of the couch. She hoists herself up onto two feet with it, grasping at Chan’s knee with one hand, Mr. Giraffe gripped in the other. “Appa,” she says, quietly, holding the plushie out for him. It’s the first time Hansol has heard her speak, properly, though he’d been told the dramatic story of her first word. It makes warmth bloom in his chest to hear it now, to witness June effortlessly choosing Chan like this.

“For me?” he asks, taking the toy with reverence. She sticks her hand in her mouth and watches him cuddle it close to his chest. “Thanks, June.”

She turns around to get on her hands and knees again, quickly crawling back across the room. Hansol laughs out loud as she goes, and Chan looks down at the giraffe in his hands.

“It looks like June is a step ahead of all of us.” He stands up again and stretches his arms out with a groan. “You can talk to us whenever you’re ready. Like I said, this is all up to you.”

“I will. It’s just—this was never even imaginable for me. I’m still getting my head around the idea of it.” He stands up too, body parallel to Hansol, and Hansol can’t help but think about kissing him.

“Yeah. We’ve thought about it a lot, so take your time.”

“Okay.” Chan’s shoulders are relaxed as he positions Mr. Giraffe in the crook of his neck. “I will.”

Hansol takes the giraffe’s head in his hand, and leans it around until it kisses Chan’s cheek, making an exaggerated smooching sound with his mouth. “Mr. Giraffe will help you, I’m sure.”

Chan giggles as he swats him away, pink-cheeked and happy-eyed.

-

June takes to her new pushchair much better than expected, considering how much the girl hates sitting still. He knows that the other two haven’t been out with her that much because of Seungkwan’s leg, though, so perhaps it’s the simple delight of being on a trip outside that placates her.

Seokmin and Jeonghan are already sitting in the park when they arrive, with Seokmin leaping up once they come into view, running over to jump on Hansol in a strong hug. “You’re back! You’re here!”

He laughs and grasps him around the back, accepting the hug with vigour. “Did you think I was staying in the mountains?”

“No, I just missed you! I sent you memes so many times before I remembered you wouldn’t get them!”

“I saw. Read back through every one.”

“No way. Did you?”

“Of course! They were all really good!”

“Uncle Sollie!” Wonwoo comes running towards him as fast as his little legs will carry him, crashing into his shins and wrapping his arms around his legs. Wonwoo is four years old and big for his age, so Hansol staggers slightly, bending down to pick him up and throw him into the air.

“Wonwoo! I’m back! Did you miss me?”

“Yes!” he giggles, delighted, as Hansol rests him against his hip.

“Good, I missed you too. I brought something back for you, actually.”

“For me?” Wonwoo asks, amazed, and Hansol wiggles his eyebrows at him.

“You bet. Let’s sit down and I’ll get it out, alright?”

“Hansol!” Jeonghan calls from the picnic rug, gaze warm. “Will you come here and give me a hug too?”

“It’s like we’re chopped liver,” he hears Seungkwan mutter. Hansol drops his bag to the rug and kneels down to give Jeonghan his hug, nearly bowling them both over.

“We saw you last week. It feels like it’s been a year since I saw this face,” Jeonghan says, pinching Hansol’s cheek until he pulls out of his grasp. “Nice to see you alive.”

“You too, Hyung,” he says, shuffling back to his bag and zipping it open. He can see Wonwoo watching him from the side with bated breath.

“Seokmin ran past me without even a hello!” Seungkwan complains, and Seokmin just laughs, leaning over Jeonghan to tackle hug Seungkwan too. Beside him, Chan is unclipping June from her pram, talking to her quietly. He reaches around in his bag until he finds the plushie that had made him think of Wonwoo, wandering between the tourist stalls of Leh-Ladakh.

“Here you go,” he says, placing the toy into Wonwoo’s careful hands, who looks at it in wonder. “This is called a yak, which is an animal they use a lot for transport in the high places in the Himalayas. It’s like a big cow, with these fancy horns here. They’re really strong, intelligent creatures. I thought you might like him for your collection.”

Wonwoo looks up at him in reverence, then looks down at his toy, clutching it close with a small smile on his face.

“What do we say for presents, Wonwoo?” Jeonghan prompts, and Wonwoo gives a shy glance around at the adults watching him.

“Thank you, Uncle Sol,” he says, and Hansol coos, ruffling his hair fondly.

“No problem, kiddo.”

June crawls her way over the picnic blanket, now freed from her trappings, and stops in front of Wonwoo. He’s heard that the two have met a few times, mostly sharing wary looks with each other and playing parallel rather than properly interacting, and he suppresses a laugh at the way they look at each other now. Between the age gap and June’s general mistrust of everyone, their relationship is one of uncertainty and mild distrust, but at least June is getting more used to seeing the important people in their life without bursting into tears.

“Here, June,” Seungkwan says, tipping out her favourite blocks, but June is already crawling over to inspect the grass at the edge of their blanket, patting it curiously. “Alright, fine. Whatever you want, you silly baby.”

“This is kind of momentous, isn’t it?” Jeonghan asks, watching her too. “Isn’t this the first family outing with all four of you?”

“Yes,” Seungkwan says, proudly. “I thought it would take her longer to get used to Hansol, but I think she’s starting to accept her revolving door of father figures.”

“Hopefully there won’t be any more?” Seokmin asks.

“No, no more,” Hansol agrees. “Three dads is enough. You two will have to stick with Uncle, unfortunately.”

He glances at Chan, who’s watching June with an absent smile and quietly listening to the conversation. When Hansol catches his eye, they share quick, genuine smiles.

“I’ll take it,” Seokmin is saying, face bright as he waves down at June. “Hi! Uncle Seok! Can you say that? Uncle?”

June doesn’t pay any attention to him, too busy smacking her hand down on the dirt.

“Has she managed any more words yet?”

“Still just Appa, and still just to Chan,” Seungkwan sighs, put-upon, tugging at Chan’s sleeve. “She has her favourites.”

“It’s probably just survival instinct,” Chan says. “I’ve been feeding her and clothing her and giving her milk every morning, so it’s probably easier for her to recognise—”

“—a favourite, you’re literally describing favouritism!”

“Don’t be mad just because I’m the best dad in the household,” Chan says, pulling his sleeve free with feigned annoyance. “She’s probably still not sure where the rest of your leg went.”

“Oh, that’s true,” Seungkwan laughs, turning back to Jeonghan. “Since I got the cast off, she keeps looking at me funny. I think she doesn’t trust my sudden transformation.”

“At this rate, she’ll never take to anyone but her favourite,” Jeonghan agrees.

“She’ll like you all,” Wonwoo says wisely, from where he’s arranging his Yak into a circle of soft toy friends. “She’s just too small right now.”

“That’s right,” Chan agrees, gesturing at him. “Wonwoo gets it! She’ll pick it up over time. You’re all too impatient.”

“You think child services will let you hold onto her, then? For a long time?” Seokmin asks.

“We think so,” Hansol explains. “We met with a lawyer last week, and we’ve been speaking to Mingyu a lot, too. We’re able to keep hold of her until and after the trial, and then we’re going to apply for legal custody. If that goes through, we’ll be her legal guardians, and we could think about adoption in the long term, if it’s what everyone involved feels is best.”

“Do you think you’ll get it? The custody?”

“Mingyu thinks we should,” Seungkwan says. “It’ll go through court as a formality, but it shouldn’t take too long, what with me being her only direct family. We’ve been looking after June without issue until now, too, so the process doesn’t seem as tough as I first thought, but I’ll still be down on the system as her sole parent. Adoption would be a much longer, harder process, but the custody seems doable, thankfully.”

“That’s really good,” Jeonghan says, watching June approach Wonwoo’s circle with intrigue. “If the custody is enough, don’t even bother trying to get adoption status, too. We jumped through so many hoops just to keep Wonwoo. June deserves a stable home, and you guys deserve her, too.”

Over at the fun side of their gathering, June turns to approach Wonwoo’s circle, looking at each of the animals curiously. Wonwoo nervously wriggles in his spot for a moment, considering, then cautiously picks up his yak and offers it to June. He’s such a good kid—if they can bring up June half as well, he knows she’ll be alright.

“Thank you,” Seungkwan is saying from his other side. “She’s changed everything in our lives for the better. I couldn’t imagine giving her up, now.” Chan is watching Seungkwan with such intense focus that Hansol wishes he would turn around and notice.

“And you didn’t think you could do it at the start!” Jeonghan says, resting back on his hands with a cattish smile.

“Okay, it’s not like that, I was in shock when we had that phone call—it was just panic, I was never really that worried—”

“You were pretty worried. But we both knew you would be fine. And you knew it too, deep down.”

“Yes,” Seungkwan says, mouth pressing into a proud little smile. “I think so. We’ve made it this far.”

“And you’ll go much further,” Jeonghan says, certain. “You have a solid parent to child ratio at home, now. Isn’t three of you enough to handle her?”

“I’d like to leave you alone with her for a day and see what you think,” Chan says, deadpan. “Three people is barely enough.”

Seokmin laughs, resting down on an elbow to come level with June. “You hear that? He’s selling you out! But you’re a little angel, aren’t you?”

June clutches her yak to her chest, staring at Seokmin, before promptly sneezing right into his face. Jeonghan and Seungkwan immediately burst into laughter, Chan joining them as he reaches into their bag for tissues.

“You were asking for that one,” Hansol says, grinning wide as Seokmin blinks, frozen in place. Wonwoo is giggling from the side, too, high and delighted.

“Come here,” Chan says, wiping Seokmin’s face clean before leaning around June and doing the same for her.

“Thanks,” he says, beginning to laugh, pushing himself back up as June lets herself be wiped down. “Maybe I did.”

June drops the yak unceremoniously, completely unbothered by the mayhem around her, and Wonwoo carefully picks it up again to correct its place in the circle. She’s already pulling away from Chan’s careful hands to start crawling between them all again, headed for her blocks, spilt out along the middle of the blanket.

“I wouldn’t ask for any other kid,” Hansol says, patting down the soft, wispy hair on her head as she passes. “She’s going to do great things.”

“You have such grand visions of things,” Chan remarks. “She just sneezed in Seokmin’s face.”

“Exactly. Not many people can do that.”

“If you say so.” Chan digs around in their bag again to present June with the ever-loved Mr. Giraffe. She grasps him immediately, keeping him pressed to her side as she starts picking up her blocks.

“I do say so,” he says, catching Chan’s eye again. “I have a sixth sense for great things.”

“Alright, mountain man,” Seungkwan says, leaning back on the flat of his palms. “We all know where this is going.”

“Yes, you need to tell us all about the trip!” Seokmin says, perking up. “What did you see? Amazing things, I’m sure!”

Chan leans back on his palm, too, and from the corner of his eye he can see his fingers come to rest on top of Seungkwan’s. Seungkwan glances down in surprise, then shoots him a small smile, and Chan returns it.

“Yes,” he says, nodding and pulling his gaze away. “So many amazing things. Once, we visited this monastery in Bhutan that was completely built into a mountain cliffside…”

-

They say the groom isn’t supposed to see the bride on their wedding day, but he and Seungkwan have never been ones for tradition, and there’s no actual bride involved here, anyway. Unless you count his sister’s girlfriend, who’d turned up in a beautiful white dress, declaring she was ready to catch any bouquet thrown at any given point. Sofia had just laughed, fond, and Hansol’s father had scratched his head, looking vaguely concerned. _We can’t do two marriages in two years_ , he’d whispered to Mom, who had just smiled and waved him off.

Anyway. He and Seungkwan decide to get ready for the ceremony together. It’s only a small gathering, and they both have the same best man, so it makes the most sense. Chan is more stressed than either of them, which is surprising—after all the stress of organising the wedding over the past few months, Seungkwan seems to have come over in a state of calm today. Hansol hopes it’s not a sign he’s going to pass out at the altar, or something.

“Chan, seriously. Minjung was joking about the bouquets. I think. I don’t have one to throw, either way.”

“She’s not going to be upset, is she? I’d hate for her to come away without catching one like she wanted.”

“I’ll tell her to stop asking you, if she’s stressing you out.”

“She’s not! I’m not stressed out! It’s your wedding!”

“Exactly!” Seungkwan says, standing from his chair and turning to face Chan. “So why are you so worried?”

Chan spreads his hands out, shoulders high. “I just want things to be good for you guys! Perfect, even.”

“They already are,” he berates, coming up to Chan’s side and throwing his arms around his neck. “You worry too much. I’m still stuck on the fact that I’m actually getting married.”

“I know, right? You finally beat me at something worthwhile by getting married first. Who would’ve thought it?”

“I trust you’re only going to make your wedding bigger and better just to spite me.”

“What could be bigger than flying your half of the ceremony out to New York?”

“True. Jihoon is going to love me forever for this.”

“Hey,” Hansol says, standing up to join them. “Isn’t that my job?”

“Oh, wow. That was cheesy for you, Chwe.”

The door to the dressing room creaks open, and Soonyoung peeks his head around the door. Hansol’s not quite sure why he’s here, attending their wedding—he’s a friend from Chan’s studio, and neither he nor Seungkwan know him that well—but he’s grateful for it, because he’s been by Chan’s side for the whole trip so far.

“They want everyone seated out there,” he says, looking them over with a grin. “Wow, you guys look great! This is so exciting, isn’t it?”

“Are they waiting for us?” Seungkwan asks, straightening his tie.

“Yes, but take your time!” Soonyoung exclaims, taking Chan by the sleeve and pulling him from the room. “We’ll see you out there. You only get married once!”

Chan moves to follow after him, but pauses in the doorway. He opens his mouth, then shuts it again. “See you soon,” he says, glancing at each of them before clicking the door shut behind him.

“Wow,” he says, once they’re alone. “Chan admitted you won something against him. It really must be a special day.”

“It’s because I’m marrying you. Of course I won,” Seungkwan says, wrapping an arm around his middle and pulling him close. “Who could say I’m not hitting jackpot right now?”

“We owe it all to him, though. He was the one who got us together in the first place.”

“That’s right,” he murmurs. “Is it silly to say I feel like he should be up there with us?”

“Not at all.”

“You know what they say,” Seungkwan sighs, smoothing down the lapel of Hansol’s suit. “Marriage is a union of three.”

“I think the third one is supposed to be Jesus.”

Seungkwan waves his hand to the side. “Semantics.”

“I’ll let Chan know we’re thinking of him up there.”

“Don’t you dare!” Seungkwan grins, trying for affronted, but it comes out half delighted. “You’ll scare him off one of these days!”

“We’ll get there. For now, am I enough?”

Seungkwan’s hand goes up to stroke the back of his carefully parted hair. “More than enough. I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” he says, and kisses him on the lips. “Let’s go and get married.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for more of kid wonwoo being adorable, i must recommend caro's [fic series](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16139003/chapters/37707491) which inspired me to write kid wonwoo in this work. i love him so much and she totally sold me on him being the cutest bestest kid ever, so i had to cameo him in my own kid fic!!
> 
> the last chapter is about 1k shorter than the others have been so it might be out on friday or something, we'll see. thank you so much for sticking with the fic so far!


	5. Chan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so this chapter turned out to be pretty much the same length as all the others after editing LOL but i still got it edited quicker than usual thanks to the dialogue heavy scenes and a less tiring week at work. i hope you like the final chapter!!

“It’s wonderful,” he says, running his hand along the bar in front of the mirrors.

“It’s nothing too fancy,” Soonyoung responds, leaning against the doorframe to survey the studio room. “But it’s not bad, right?”

“It’s enough space for a good class, and that’s what matters.” He leans up against the large window, looking out to the street. “Holy shit, I’m so excited to get back to work again. I’ve missed it so much.”

“Me too. The business side of it is so tedious. Are you proud of me for getting through all the paperwork?”

“So proud,” he grins, opening his arms and moving into the space of the room. Soonyoung beams, and starts to walk forwards, as Chan spins his way across the room. Just to have all this space, after months of squeezing into Seungkwan and Hansol’s apartment, makes him feel like he can breathe again. He spins right into Soonyoung’s arms, clutching him tight and laughing, and Soonyoung spins him in his grasp.

“You’d better be here early on Monday. We’re getting off to a strong start, alright?”

He straightens up, putting a hand to his forehead in salute. “Yes, sir!”

Soonyoung laughs, loud and bright. He’s smiling hard, and Chan knows how proud he is of this place. He deserves it. He’s created this second chance for both of them.

“Alright, I’ve got to run. It’s June’s birthday, and I still have to make icing for the cake.”

Soonyoung gasps. “Cake? Will you save some for me?”

“Obviously. Seungkwan’s on a diet, and I’m not a huge cake person, but Hansol might eat half of it on his own. I’ll bring you the other half on Monday.”

“I’ll hold you to that!” Soonyoung calls after him as he backs out of the room, exiting their (very own!) dance studio and jogging back to his car.

The studio isn’t far from home, thankfully, now that home is Seungkwan and Hansol’s city-centre apartment. Still, his mind is working on overdrive on the short trip back, like it tends to do all the time, now. What is he going to say to Hansol and Seungkwan when they finally talk? What is he going to do about moving out? When did he start thinking of their apartment as _home_? The most important parts of his life have changed so suddenly, but also not suddenly at all. In some ways, it feels like his life has always been like this. Has it?

“Don’t you think you should be nicer to me?” Hansol is saying as he steps through the front door. Chan spots him sitting on the same desk chair Seungkwan had done so much work (and moving, and falling) from over the past few months. June is standing up next to him, hands clutching the side of his chair, peering over at the desk. “I’m your third dad, kiddo.”

“It is her birthday,” he points out, hanging his coat up on the hook and tucking his shoes into the rack. “I think she can get away with whatever mischief she’s causing for today.”

“She wanted up, so I had her on my lap, but then she started smacking the keyboard,” Hansol explains, and Chan snorts. “So I put her down, but then she started pulling my hand away to play with it. I can’t win.” Hansol’s hand is still under hers, he sees now. He’s not making any move to pull it away.

“She’s cheeky as anything, but it’s all a part of her charm,” he says, headed to the kitchen to pull out the icing sugar. “Has she eaten?”

“Yeah, fed her a little while ago. Are we ordering in when Kwan gets home?”

“Please. I’m so ready to eat.”

“Same. How was the studio?”

“Good!” he tips the sugar into a bowl and knocks the tap on, estimating the amount of water he’ll need. “Small, it’s only two rooms and the lobby, but he’s fitted the place out well. All we need now is to hold good classes, and bring in students who want to stay.”

“You’ll do well, then.”

“I think so,” he says, sitting down to mix the icing with ease. The two halves of his sponge cake sit on the table, where he’d left them this morning, thankfully untouched by grubby baby hands. “I was actually—well, I was wondering—”

Words suddenly come to a halt in his mouth, as they seem to do whenever he’s faced with this topic. He wants to talk about it almost every damn day, is desperate to know more about what they could have, but it’s so hard to make his thoughts leave his mouth coherently. He barely even has room in his own mind to breathe, to acknowledge it. It’s probably a sign that he’s been suppressing certain things for too long.

He takes a deep breath. “I’m going to be earning again, and Soonyoung has been generous for a starting salary. I’m obviously… still working through things, and I’m not—this isn’t me turning anyone down, because that’s not really…. um. Well. I just was wondering if I should start looking for places to move out to.”

Hansol watches him with a steady gaze, waiting for him to finish, for Chan to look up from his icing mix and meet Hansol’s eyes. When he does, he stands from his desk chair, picking up June and holding her to his side. Upon taking the seat next to Chan at the table, June immediately starts wriggling away, anxious to be back on the floor. “You’re asking if we want you to go?” He sets June down again, who immediately crawls away from them and their boring adult conversation.

“Sort of. You guys have made it clear you want me to stay, but whatever happens—you know, however things are in the future with us, wouldn’t it be easier for me to have my own place?”

“Would it?” Hansol pulls a face. “I know what the one-person apartments are like around here. Do you really want to go back to that? No offence, but your old place was a hovel.”

“Offence fully taken. That place was home!”

“ _Was_ being the key word,” Hansol says, serious. “Do you really want it to be again?”

He looks back down at his icing, picking out a spoonful and spreading it along the flat top of the cake. “I don’t know. I just want what’s best for all of us.”

“You know what we want. And I think I can speak for June too when I say that you’re vital here, with us. But don’t neglect yourself in all of this. At the end of the day, you owe it to yourself to do what feels right. If you need space, we’ll understand.”

He spreads the icing out evenly with the back of the spoon, watching it seep over the sponge. “I do want to stay. Single apartments are so quiet.”

“Then stay.”

Chan glances up at him, and Hansol is looking right back, expression honest and open. Chan’s eyes dart over his face, lingering slightly too long on Hansol’s mouth, and he quickly looks back down at his bowl of icing to dump another big spoonful onto the cake. “Okay. I’ll stay.”

Hansol shifts forward, elbows on the table, until he’s close to Chan, the two of them leaning over the cake together. Chan looks up again, and Hansol is smiling at him, looking at his mouth, at his eyes, at his mouth again. Chan really wants to kiss him.

So he leans in and lands a quick kiss there, on soft lips. Hansol stares at him as he sits back again, and then his mouth stretches into a big smile, wide enough to show his teeth and gums as he runs a hand through his hair. A small laugh escapes him, and he grins at Chan, unabashedly happy.

The sound of the doorknob is the only half-second warning they have before Seungkwan comes bursting into the apartment. “God, it’s awful out there. I thought June’s birthday would be over before I made it through the traffic. Some drivers only want to see the world burn and babies go without birthdays, I swear.”

He looks around the room, finding the two of them sat at the table, Chan looking very intently at the half a cake in front of him. His cheeks feel warm, and Hansol is still smiling like a very handsome, very wonderful idiot. He can’t believe this is his real life, now, kissing his best friends and looking after a one-year-old and making a cake like some sort of domestic dream housewife—

“Am I interrupting something?” Seungkwan asks, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall, eyebrow raised.

“When aren’t you?” he counters. “Did you bring the bananas?”

“Obviously. You’re not seriously going to put them on the cake, are you?”

He stands up to better align the top half of his cake with the bottom. “Of course. It’s June’s birthday, so the cake is for her. If that means banana sponge cake, then that’s what we’re having.”

“We better be ordering some good food to make up for it,” Seungkwan says, taking the third chair around the kitchen table. “I can only handle so much of that abomination.”

“You told me you weren’t going to have any! What happened to your diet?”

“I say a lot of things, Chan, it’s different when the food is in front of me!”

“Even when it’s banana sponge cake?” Hansol asks, smile lingering in his voice.

“If it’s cake, all my senses are lost,” Seungkwan says, watching Chan coat the top of the cake in icing, too.

“If you order the food now, we won’t have to wait long for it,” he prompts, and Seungkwan makes a face at him before pulling out his phone.

They order their usual dishes, and make quick work of them together, and Chan insists on paying for all of it in celebration of his new job. Being able to do something like that for them, after such a long stretch of dependence, is more liberating than he’s willing to admit.

June is pulled up to sit in her highchair, and they sing happy birthday to her, and Seungkwan blows out her singular candle. Hansol had bought her a picture book, Seungkwan a new giraffe toy, and Chan a set of children’s crayons. She’s disinterested in all of them, but thrilled about the cake, happily crumbling her slice between chubby fingers and shovelling the crumbs into her mouth (and all down herself). They laugh and take plenty of pictures, encouraging her to smile up at the camera, banana smeared across her cheeks and chin.

Later, as he’s putting her down to bed, he can hear Hansol murmuring to Seungkwan in the kitchen. He decides to use some tact and wait in the bedroom for a little longer, despite the fact that the bedtime story ended a while ago. He wishes he could go out there and tell them what he wants to say with confidence, but it’s hard to believe it could ever work, could ever be what he’s wanted for so long. He wants to try. Oh, how badly he wants to try. But that’s hard to admit, even to himself.

When he emerges from the bedroom, Seungkwan sneaks a glance at him, barely suppressing a knowing smile. Chan looks past him, to where Hansol is starting on his fourth slice of the cake at the kitchen table, hair slightly greasy under the stark kitchen light. He can’t help but think that he wants to hold this moment in his hands and preserve it forever—that he wants to keep what he’s been offered by them, this new chance at life. Wants to call it home.

It’s hard to say that out loud, but he thinks they might already know.

“Do you want to watch _Hamilton_ tonight? Hansol says he’s desperate to say it,” Seungkwan asks, easy as anything.

Chan shrugs. “Yeah, alright.” He takes a seat next to Seungkwan on the sofa, shoulders touching, and Hansol puts his plate in the sink to come and sit on his other side. When they pull the blanket over their legs, Seungkwan’s feet kicked up in his lap, Chan thinks that perhaps these two have been home for a long, long time already.

-

He bends over the bathtub to stick his elbow into water lining the bottom. It’s a little cold, so he turns the hot tap on further, listening to Seungkwan singing from the bedroom as he gets June undressed.

“Rub a dub dub,” he’s saying, vaguely, like he’s not really aware he’s doing it. “It’s time to get in the tub! Rub a dub dub, shall we get in the tub? Rub a dub dub…”

After another minute, he sticks his elbow in again. The temperature is good, and he doesn’t want to fill it up too far, so he turns the taps off and stands to reach for June’s bath toys, calling through for Seungkwan. “It’s ready!”

“It’s time to get in the tub!” Seungkwan exclaims, and he hears June’s shriek of laughter as she’s flown into the bathroom by firm hands on her sides, guiding her through the air. Seungkwan lands her straight in the bathtub, carefully sat upright. “Would you look at that!”

“Duckie is happy to see you, June,” he says, splashing the yellow duck into the water. “And how about all these friends?” The set of floating dinosaurs is poured in, spilling out over the water, and June laughs again, clapping her hands.

“Appa,” she orders, gesturing for her favourite toys in the set.

“Channie Appa! How could you forget?” Seungkwan gasps, taking a seat on the stool beside the bathtub.

“How could I forget?” he agrees, picking the tubes up and placing them in the water too. June immediately reaches for the L shaped one, picking it up and watching in fascination as the water comes pouring out of both ends. “There you go. The wonders of piping.”

Seungkwan picks up her washcloth from the side and dampens it in the water, wringing it out until it’s damp. “Wait until she sees what the pipes can do on Super Mario.”

“Oh, you know Hansol will start her on video games as soon as possible. She’ll be a good player, I can tell. I’d better start practising.”

Seungkwan starts to wash her face with the cloth, carefully cupping the back of her head as he wipes her down. “She turned the T.V. on by herself the other day. She’ll be beating you both before you even notice it.”

“Maybe I’ll have to say goodbye to my high score. At least I’ll always be able to beat you.”

Seungkwan swats at him with the cloth, but Chan just laughs and winks at him, sitting down on the other low stool beside the bath. He rests his head on the side of the tub to watch June play, but she doesn’t pay him any attention, too busy pushing her dinosaurs around with the end of a tube. Bath time is one of her favourites.

“I never would’ve expected all this,” Seungkwan says, after a quiet minute of listening to June’s splashing noises echo around the bathroom. “That sounds silly to say, because there’s no way any of us could’ve predicted having June in our lives. But this sort of domestic family dream seemed a million miles away to me, three months ago. I didn’t know any of this was possible for us to have.” He glances at Chan, letting the washcloth rest in his hand. “But I love it so much. The last few weeks have been almost perfect. I don’t want things to change.”

Chan raises his head to meet Seungkwan’s eyes. “Why almost perfect?”

Seungkwan shrugs, looking down at the water. “There are still unknowns. We’re not quite an official family yet, but if everything goes the way I’m hoping, we will be soon. Then it’ll be perfect.”

With June’s custody matter on the horizon, as well as Hansol’s words about Chan staying in the back of his mind, he knows exactly what Seungkwan means. “Almost.”

“If it’s what everyone wants,” Seungkwan says, tone lilting, a hesitant question.

He rubs the back of his head with blunt nails, trying to make the words come out, but he ends up resting his chin against the bathtub with a vague noise. He’s so close to saying it—he just hadn’t been ready to be put on the spot. _I want this!_ his mind screams. Somehow, his lips stay closed.

But he meets Seungkwan’s eye, and that seems to be enough, because Seungkwan nods at him slightly before picking up the shower head and turning on a light spray. “What about you, June? Will you defend me in court when they ask if I’m a good dad?”

“Buh,” June says, trying to twist away from the spray.

“Come on, just a minute, baby,” Chan says, quickly doling out the shampoo. This part needs to be done swiftly in order to avoid a temper tantrum that can easily last into the rest of the evening, so he pushes Seungkwan’s question to the back of his mind for now.

She complains and whines as he starts to massage the shampoo into her thin, short hair. He’s picked up on the tactic of pulling faces at her to try and distract her from the process, and she’s getting good at pulling the faces back. She’s especially good at sticking out her tongue at him, and seems to be associating it with the shampooing process, because today she sticks her tongue out at him before he can get there first.

Seungkwan rinses her out a minute later, and she shakes her head like a dog, then picks up her tube again to carry on watching the sudsy water drip out. She plays for another minute or two, and then starts splashing at the dinosaurs, restless.

“Alright, I think it’s time to get out,” Seungkwan says. He reaches down for her as Chan stands to get her little baby towel ready.

“No,” June says, and he can see Seungkwan freeze in place in his peripheral. Chan whips back around to face them, wide eyed.

“Did she just say that?” he asks, and Seungkwan looks back at him, mouth open.

“No!” June says, louder, picking the duck up and throwing it back into the water with a splash.

“Oh my God.” Chan starts to laugh, a bubble of a purely pleasant surprise sitting in his chest.

Seungkwan just sits there, shocked and staring. June stares back at him in challenge.

“June!” he says, affronted. “I can’t believe you told me _no_ before you called me Appa!”

June continues to stare for a few seconds, mouth open, tube grasped loosely in one hand. “Appa,” she says, in a quieter voice, then smiles like a little cherub, and turns back to her dinosaurs.

Chan laughs properly that time, the sound wracking his chest as he clutches her towel close. Seungkwan leans against the side of the tub and starts to laugh too, hands covering his face as Chan doubles over beside him. June glances between them like they’ve lost their minds.

Hansol looks at them much the same way when he comes to the bathroom door a minute later, taking in the scene in front of him. “What’s wrong with you two?”

June beams when he comes into view, making a happy noise in her throat and reaching out for him. “Appa!”

Seungkwan wipes his eyes and sits up straight again, pointing at June with one finger. “Hey! You’ve got to be kidding me! You’re really going to behave like that?”

“Did she just call me Appa?” Hansol asks, dumbfounded.

Chan sinks down onto the closed toilet lid, feeling warm. “She did. And now she knows the word ‘no’. She’s going to be unstoppable.”

“No,” June says from the bathtub, gesturing impatiently, and Hansol leans down to pick her up out of the bath. Chan stands up to meet them, pulling her little baby towel over her head, the hood part coming down over her eyes.

“She’s going to have this household under her thumb by age three,” Seungkwan pronounces.

“She runs this place already,” Hansol remarks, leaving the crowded bathroom with June in his arms. “Don’t fool yourself.”

Chan wrings the last few giggles out of his frame, bending over to empty the bath and start picking out her toys. “I love her,” he says, as he has before, but it feels truer than ever, now.

“Me too. Wouldn’t give her up for the world,” Seungkwan says, smiling at the dirty bathwater being sucked away.

“You’re right, you know. Even if someone had told us we’d be looking after a baby while Hansol was abroad, I could never have predicted she’d be like June.”

Seungkwan is red faced and relaxed from the laughter. “She’s pretty special, isn’t she?”

“Very,” he agrees. “Just perfect for the three of us.”

Seungkwan breaks out into a brighter, unstoppable smile, resting his face in one hand and watching Chan arrange the dinosaurs on the side, avoiding Seungkwan’s gaze with his own small smile.

-

“Is this a good sign?” Soonyoung’s voice shouts over the blasting music. Chan stops in the middle of the choreography to turn and face him—he didn’t even notice him come in.

He jogs over to knock the music off. “It is, I swear,” he confirms, walking up to him to take the offered towel for his face. “Today was really great! The younger kids were a bit shy, but they got into it once I showed them the fun warm-up techniques.”

“You’re good at those.” Soonyoung leans against the wall opposite the mirrors, and Chan comes to join him there, breathing gradually slowing down.

“The teenagers were more awkward with each other. I think it might have been a bit too much pressure to ask for their input on the choreography so soon, so I’m going to finish off the rest of it on my own. I can always change it in a few weeks, when they’re more willing to put forward their own ideas.”

“So it all went okay? This isn’t stress dancing?”

“Just great. Couldn’t ask for better. It’s stress dancing for a different reason. You?”

“Yeah, good,” Soonyoung grins, looking away at the mirrors. “Everything went amazing. I’m really pleased. But what’s the stress dancing for, then? Do I have to be worried?” He puts his hands up to the back of Chan’s shoulders and starts rubbing his thumbs into the knots there. His shoulders immediately come down under the grasp, and Chan sighs, trying to relax into it.

“It’s not about the studio. This place is perfect. It’s what I’m about to go home and do that’s stressing me out.”

“What are you going to do? Tell them I finished the rest of the cake?”

“No,” he says, cracking a smile. “It’s kind of… huge.”

“Are you going to talk to them?”

He nods, turning to look at Soonyoung, the only other person who knows about it all. “I’m going to get changed, and go home, and tell them that I want it. I want to be with them. And I’m terrified.”

“Why?”

“It’s just so much. What if it’s a mistake? What if I can’t keep up with the two of them?”

“You? You might be the only person in the world who can keep up with Boo Seungkwan.”

“You know what I mean. They’ve been married for nearly a year now, and they dated for ages before that. So fucking long. And I could’ve been with them this whole time, but I was too afraid. What if it’s too late now?”

“This all could’ve been done much sooner,” Soonyoung agrees. “But you’re here now, and you have a shot at so much happiness. Your boys, your baby. It’s right there. You’re not going to back away because you’re afraid, are you? You’re Lee Chan!”

He looks up at himself in the mirror, sweaty and invigorated. “You’re right. I’m going to go and get them.”

“That’s right, baby!” Soonyoung exclaims, and pulls him into a rough hug.

“Wish me luck?”

“You don’t need it,” he grins. “But good luck. You’d better come back here with your head in the game and two official boyfriends tomorrow.”

“I’ll do my best,” he says, and then he’s grabbing his bag and racing out of the door before he can think twice about it. “Thanks, Hyung!”

-

He stops in front of their apartment door, tousling his hair, hoping it doesn’t look too matted. He’d brought better clothes to work to change into, but they have no shower at the studio, so he’s still a little sweaty under the pressed shirt. He passes the bouquets to his left hand, takes a deep breath, and knocks on the front door.

Seungkwan yells from inside the apartment, “Just a second!” and his heart leaps in his chest. He’s really doing this. He wants to bury his face in the flowers and never emerge again.

Then Seungkwan opens the door, and he can’t help but smile. “Sorry, I—” he trails off, seeing him on their doorstep. Chan has had the spare key for months now. “Chan?”

“Hi,” he says, pressing the first bouquet into Seungkwan’s hands. Seungkwan looks down at it, uncomprehending, then looks up again—and Chan leans over it to kiss him, sweet and quick on the mouth. “I’m here for the boyfriend applications?”

Seungkwan is staring at him, open-mouthed and bright eyed, laughing a little as he blinks at Chan. “That’s good, because you’re the only applicant we’ve reviewed.”

“Wonderful,” he says, moving past him into the apartment. June is sat in front of the T.V., entranced by the talking buses onscreen. “Where’s your husband?”

“He’s here,” Hansol says from the kitchen, putting the soup spoon aside to look between them. “What’s all this?”

“They’re for you,” he says, spinning in the small space between the entrance and the kitchen to present Hansol his flowers with a flourish. “Just so you know, I’m expecting two lots of flowers in return on the next date. You’re not allowed to go halves on things like this.”

“You have a low opinion of us,” Hansol tells him. “You think we’re that cheap?”

“I’m mostly joking,” he smiles. “I’m not sure where we’d put four vases of flowers, and I got these on buy-one-get-one-half-price, anyway.”

“How romantic,” Hansol says, and Chan laughs, then kisses him, too.

Seungkwan is beside them, rinsing out a vase to put his flowers in, smile never leaving his face. “You’ve had me in agony, you know. I thought we were never going to know what was on your mind.”

He breaks his gaze away from Hansol’s face to look Seungkwan’s way. “It’s called patience. It’s never been your strong suit, but I’m impressed you waited as long as you did.”

“It’s only because he’s whipped for you,” Hansol says, and Seungkwan bumps his arm. “He’d never be that patient if it were me.”

“Lies,” he says, coming up behind Chan to hug him around the middle, the two of them facing Hansol together. He’s resting his head on Chan’s shoulder, and he can hear the clear pout in his voice. “You’ve never needed my patience.”

“True. It’s me who needs patience for you.”

“This is your last chance to get out, you know,” Seungkwan murmurs into Chan’s ear, breath warm on his neck. “We don’t need this slander.”

“I don’t think I’m the one being slandered,” he says. “Also, I literally just got here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You got here a while ago, really,” Hansol points out. “I didn’t think you were going to leave us, after everything.”

“That’s true. Nearly three months.”

“And a bit longer,” Hansol smiles. “Try six years.”

“Try fourteen,” Seungkwan says, squeezing Chan around the middle until he’s breathless. “And you still want to stick around?”

“I think so,” Chan ponders, like he’s ever wanted anything else, like he could even dream of turning his back on all of this. He turns his head to meet Seungkwan’s eyes. “Let’s see how this date goes, first.”

“I’d like that,” he replies, quickly pecking the corner of Chan’s mouth with a kiss. The warmth of it spreads through Chan’s cheeks, into his chest, nestling in the place over his heart.

-

“Channie Appa!” June shouts from ahead of them. “I need the bucket!”

“Give us a second, June!” he calls back. “We’re not all as fast as you!”

“Why do you make us sound like we’re elderly?” Hansol complains, though he’s definitely the slowest of all of them, bogged down by the bulk of their bags and the slip of his shoes in the sand.

“We’re not, but are any of us as fast as our crazy four-year old?”

Seungkwan is several paces ahead of them both, laying out the picnic blanket as June watches, clutching onto her own little Pororo towel. “Come on, slowpokes! Do you want us to starve over here?”

“Some of us seem to think we are,” Hansol says, glaring in Seungkwan’s direction.

June laughs at them, jumping on the spot. “We’ll starve!” she echoes with great delight.

“She’s certainly Seungkwan’s kid,” he agrees, speaking through a smile as they catch up with the speedier members of the pack.

“The bucket!” June insists again, dropping her towel on the picnic blanket and hovering at Chan’s side.

“How do we ask for things nicely?” Hansol asks, pointedly, and June impatiently grabs the hem of her dress in both hands.

“Can I have my bucket and spade please?” she says, shuffling in place as Chan sets down his bag.

“Yes you can,” he says, pulling the purple bucket out and popping it straight onto her head. She shrieks in glee and pulls it right back off again, only to see Chan greeting her with the spade.

“Thank you, Appa!” she says, toddling over to the edge of the blanket. “I have to dig the stones out,” she explains, folding up the side of the blanket. “So we can sit in a comfy place.”

“Ah, it’s a good thing you’re here, isn’t it?” he exclaims. “Otherwise we’d be sitting on all the stones!”

June grins, pleased, and sits squarely on the sand to get a good vantage point over the pebbles and shells in question. “Don’t worry. I’ll get them.”

“I know you will,” he says, kneeling up to reach over to her. “Shall we take your backpack off first?”

She shrugs it off as he pulls the straps away for her, putting it with the rest of the bags, and then she sets straight to work. The first stone plops into the bucket, and she peers in to inspect its imprisonment. Satisfied, she sits back down to work on the rest.

“Did you put sunscreen on?” Seungkwan asks him, and Chan turns to see the bottle already being offered out for him.

“I did on my face, but I’d better put some on my legs, too,” he says, taking it and flipping the cap open. “Thanks.”

“You should. Hansol, you too, you always forget your legs.”

“I don’t burn, though. I just tan.”

“Yes, but it’s still not good for you to have UV rays on your skin all the time. Care for your skin for once and put some on!”

“We’re spending one day at the beach, Kwan, I don’t think it counts as ‘all the time’.”

Seungkwan shoots him a look, and Chan holds out the bottle for Hansol, absently rubbing the cream up his shins.

Hansol raises his eyebrows at him. “You too?”

“Don’t act betrayed. Set a good example for our kid.”

“June could not escape the sunscreen even if she wanted to,” Hansol says, but relents anyway, taking the bottle and squeezing a dollop directly onto his knee.

“Yes, because June is going to grow up knowing how to take care of her skin,” Seungkwan says, watching June intently dig up a particularly deep rock. “Remember to even it out with sand, baby, so that you can sit there afterwards.”

“I will,” June says, assured. “Don’t worry.”

“I know, you’re smart. I worry more about your dads. You’re more sensible than either of these two.”

“I know,” she says, plopping another stone into her bucket. “And more than Kwannie Appa, too.”

“Oooh!” Chan laughs, pointing at Seungkwan’s face. “You hear that?”

“Hey! June! Aren’t I a smart dad?” Seungkwan asks, one hand on his chest. “What did I do?”

June giggles, sneaking a look at him as she uses both hands to leverage up another scoop of sand. “You’re the silliest Appa.”

“I agree,” Hansol says, resting an arm on Seungkwan’s shoulder to bring their faces close, his expression full of mirth. “What, do you think she’s wrong?”

“No, but I’m plenty of other things, too!”

“And Sollie Appa is…. um… the most sensible,” she continues, picking out a shell from the sand and carefully setting it aside.

“I think there’s been a misunderstanding here,” Seungkwan mutters darkly.

“Good, June, I agree,” Hansol says. “And what about Channie Appa?”

“Channie Appa is… I think he’s the nicest?”

“Oh, June!” he can’t stop his grin, ear to ear, and he leans over to pinch her cheek gently. “You really think so?”

“Uh-huh,” she says, flashing him a toothy smile.

“What’s going on here?” Seungkwan asks, as Hansol leans on his shoulder and laughs silently, frame shaking with it. “What is all this?”

“I need help with my stones,” June announces, like she hadn’t just put Seungkwan six feet under. “The bucket is full.”

“What do you want to do with them?” Chan asks.

“We should take them somewhere else,” she explains. “So no one else sits on them.”

“Shall we take them out to the sea?” Hansol asks, shaking himself free of the wild glee. “Then the creatures at the bottom of the ocean can make homes out of them.”

June’s smile spreads, and she nods quickly. “Yes! Let’s put them in the sea.”

“Okay,” Hansol says, getting up from the blanket to pick up June’s bucket. “Let’s go.”

June reaches up to take his hand, spade still gripped firmly in the other one. “What do you think will want to live in stone houses?”

“Oh, lots of things,” Hansol says assuredly. “The plankton, for one. No one thinks about them.”

“What’s plankton?”

“Don’t go too far out!” Seungkwan calls after them. “Don’t let go of Appa’s hand, June!”

“Okay!” June calls back, and the two head off to the shoreline, their figures outlined against the bright blue sky.

“Don’t you want to paddle too?” Chan asks, eyeing up the waves. The gentle lull of movement calls to him.

“I will soon. I just want to—” he groans as he lays back on the blanket, stretching out over the now free space, “—lay down for a second, while I can. In the quiet.”

“Oh, so even the Silliest Appa can’t keep up with Junie all the time?” Chan grins, leering over him. “That’s what I thought.”

“I can keep up fine, I’m just not superhuman.”

“So June is?”

“Kids are another species,” Seungkwan says, knowledgeable. “Trust me. She’ll understand our hard work one day.”

“Maybe.” He looks out to Hansol and June’s distant shapes by the ocean line, Hansol holding the bucket steady as June methodically picks the stones out and drops them into the sea. “She’s grown up so much already.”

“Oh, don’t. I can’t bear it. She’ll be our baby forever.”

“Yeah. She will.” He turns his head, looking at Seungkwan, sun-kissed and squinting. “We’re so lucky to have her.”

Seungkwan turns to look back at him. “We’re lucky to have each other.”

He raises an eyebrow, barely suppressing a smile. “Cheesy, much.”

“It’s my old age,” he says, leaning up on one elbow to give Chan a quick kiss. “It makes me sentimental.”

“You’ve always been sentimental.” He hooks an arm around his shoulders to bring him back in for another kiss, hand in his hair. “But you’re right. So lucky.”

Seungkwan looks at him with all the warmth of the sun. “I love you.”

They kiss again, slower, until Chan gets too warm and pulls him up off the picnic blanket. Together, they walk out to sea, where Hansol is spinning June around in endless circles above the sparkling waves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u so much everyone who has stuck with this!! i feel so lucky to have people say such nice things about it, especially when uploading it over the span of a month was a bit experimental for me, especially when i didn't have much pride in it at the start. i'm so happy i've written poly maknaes, had so much fun writing baby june, really loved posting again. thank u for all your feedback, big or small <3 if you haven't left anything yet, i'd love to know your thoughts!
> 
> you can yell at me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/hope_boos) if you prefer!  
> you can also rt this fic [here!](https://twitter.com/hope_boos/status/1322265967779549185)  
> and as always, thank u to my beta [rachel](https://twitter.com/koyahyah) for reading this over and gushing over my boys
> 
> unbelievably, i'm somehow 30k deep into an nct fic now, so that might be the next thing you see from me, but have no fear! i have a svt fic i've been planning since like august lined up to write after that.... very excited!!  
> i hope you have a wonderful day and life, thanks for stopping by <3


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